


Leaving Thoughts Below

by rockstarpeach



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Bottom Jared, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, First Time, Infidelity, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Life, heterophobia, sexual identity issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockstarpeach/pseuds/rockstarpeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's sometime in the future.  Or maybe it's an alternate reality.  Overpopulation has led to a world full of concrete and glass and fake plastic food and it's forced the colonization of the moon.  It's also led to population control and the outlawing of heterosexuality.  Jared knows he's not like everybody else, but he wants to be.<br/>This is the story of how a closeted, mostly heterosexual boy named Jared grows up and falls in love, builds a life and is happy.  Even if he might have done things differently, given the chance.</p><p>Artwork by the amazing and incomparable writer786.  Check it out <a href="http://writer786.livejournal.com/5285.html">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Thoughts Below

Jared has always known that he's different.

He didn't know what it meant, not _really_ , not in any way he could actually put his finger on until about tenth grade. He knew he wasn't like everybody else but he didn't understand it in such vivid detail until they got partnered up for folk dancing in gym class and he didn't react like all the other boys.

He was fifteen years old before that vague feeling of _not the same_ solidified into something he's still not comfortable putting a name to. He was fifteen years old when he realised he'd have to keep a part of himself a secret, forever. He was fifteen years old when his mom's friend Sylvia came over in a low-cut top and accidentally leaned a little too close and Jared's life changed, forever.

Jared has always knows that he's different, but nobody else does.

He's five years old when he takes his first trip to the outercities.

He's in the backseat of a taxi, between his moms and it's forty minutes before they pass through the high concrete walls that separate the innercity from the outer, before the highrises and old brick houses turn into canvas tents and sheet metal pop-ups. Once they pass the walls police officers turn into army, hospitals into free clinics and grocery stores into food banks. 

Everyone looks sad, they look hungry. Military agents put their hands on their guns and step up whenever someone looks like they might get out of line, but nobody fights, not from what Jared can see.

“They don't have any money,” his mom says.

“And it's not their fault,” his other mom adds. 

“They don't have jobs. They have families and they can't support them, so they rely on government hand outs.”

“They wouldn't, if they could help it. They want to work. But there are too many people and not enough jobs.”

“It's like this everywhere, Jared. All the outercities, all over the world. Everywhere people don't have enough money. Everywhere people don't have jobs. They live like this, they fight each other, they beg and they steal. But they don't want to. There are just too many people. And the earth is full.”

“Why do those people have guns?” Jared asks.

“Sometimes,” his mom answers, “people disagree. They disagree with the government and they get angry.”

Jared doesn't ever want to make anyone angry.

He promises.

***

Jared comes home from his first day of third grade with a black eye and a new best friend.

The black eye fades after just a few days but his friendship with Danny lasts for years. 

It lasts through Jared getting the lead in the school play over Danny and it lasts through Danny beating out Jared for a place on the swim team.

It lasts through their fourth grade crush on the same boy, a fifth grader with freckles and really cool clothes whose been to _Tahiti_. He's out of both of their leagues, of course.

It lasts through the summer after sixth grade spent living on top of each other when Danny's dads let him stay with Jared because they had to spend two months in Japan, on business. Danny is a fucking slob and apparently Jared snores.

It lasts through that first awkward year of high school, Danny pretending he doesn't know Jared when the cool kids ask him, Jared turning Danny in for cheating on his history test.

It lasts through long, lazy afternoons on the roof, nights filled with movies and video games and way too much junk food, riding the elevators in Jared's building until the boys on the fourth floor start to follow them, then laughing and moving on to Danny's building.

It lasts through puberty, through Jared's first awkward attempt a kiss – with Danny – and lasts through Danny's gentle let down and Jared's mortified relief when he finally rules that possibility out for sure.

Danny has a global. Danny _had_ a global, until he lent it to Jared to see if Jared could beat his high score on _Tetris_. An incoming call from Danny's grandma shocks Jared into dropping the handheld over the balcony (he had those alerts set to _loud_ , okay?) and it smashes into a million pieces. Danny's dads won't buy him a new one and he doesn't talk to Jared for almost two weeks after that, but their friendship lasts through that, as well.

It lasts right up until Danny confesses, a hushed whisper late at night when Jared's in bed and Danny's on the air mattress and they're watching their favourite movie for the hundredth time, that he as a crush on Karin, from homeroom.

It's not that Jared objects to Karin – she's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny – but Karin is a _girl_. Guys aren't supposed to like girls that way. Jared's spent much of the last couple of years reminding himself that guys aren't supposed to like girls that way.

He doesn't treat Danny differently, not really. Not after a few days, when it sinks in that Danny's still the same Danny, just a little braver than Jared thought. A little braver, maybe than Jared is. And Danny doesn't act on it, doesn't do anything to draw attention to himself or to make Karin feel awkward.

Everything is the same as it ever was for almost two years.

But that confession was the beginning of the end.

One day, three weeks before thanksgiving and halfway into first semester of tenth grade, Danny is gone. Just... gone. Gone from school, gone from Jared's roof and his bedroom and when he calls Danny's home his dads tell Jared that he's away at _camp_. Jared thinks it's odd, asks him moms about why someone would go to camp in the middle of the school year and they explain as gently as they know how.

“Danny is attracted to girls,” they tell him and Jared doesn't nod, because he doesn't want to admit that he knows that, if it got Danny into trouble. He's always known that gets people into trouble.

“No, he's not,” Jared denies, voice slight and shaky.

“It's okay, honey,” his mom says. “You're not in trouble.”

“But Danny is.”

“His dads think it's wrong, the way he feels. And there are... places. Places parents sometimes send kids to help make them like everybody else.”

“His dads think he's wrong,” Jared repeats, going over his mother's words carefully. “But... you don't?”

She's silent for a long time, then sighs and smiles a crooked smile. 

“No, sweetie,” she says. “Danny's not wrong. What he wants isn't wrong. It's just... not the way things are done.”

Danny comes back three months later, back to school and back to Jared's roof and back to Jared's bedroom but his smile isn't quite the same and he doesn't laugh as deeply. When Andrew Jarvis asks him out on a date he goes. He doesn't tell Jared about it, but he must have have fun because he goes again the next week.

Again and again he goes, after Andrew it's Dillon and then Moyez and the more he dates, the more withdrawn he becomes. 

He doesn't want to go to the movies or the library with Jared, doesn't spend the night when he comes over for dinner. He doesn't talk to Jared the way he used to, doesn't talk at all unless Jared talks first, unless Jared pushes and even then it's only one word answers.

His mother's say that sometimes the camps change people. They say that that's the point. They don't seem any happier about it than Jared is.

The school year isn't even over yet and Danny is already an entirely different person.

He's a ghost, a shell and Jared misses him like a limb and he'll never, he promises himself _never_ be sent away like that. Jared likes who he is. He doesn't want to change.

Danny's not Jared's best friend anymore. He stopped being that even before he stopped taking Jared's calls.

***

As Jared gets older, whispered tales of kids being sent to 'camp' are traded out for stories about second offenders being tried as adults, about men having sex with women and being sent to jail for it.

It doesn't happen to anybody Jared knows. Despite some locker room teasing, despite the feeling Jared gets that Danny wasn't alone, that Jared's not alone, nobody he knows is stupid enough to act on any whims for a second time.

Friends of friends at another school or widowed parents or former students, they make the gossip circuit, but Jared doesn't even know, not beyond what happened to Danny, if any of it is real.

He hopes he never finds out.

***

Jared's in twelfth grade when he gets his first boyfriend.

His name is Nathan and he's incredibly handsome. He's shorter than Jared (who isn't, at this point?) but he's big, wide across the shoulders and his thighs are enormous. He plays football, he shaves every day, he's smart and strong and charming as hell.

Jared kisses him. For the first time, Jared kisses him in Nathan's beat up Pontiac in Jared's driveway after a movie, their third date. They're home by eleven. Of course they are, because Jared's parents told them to be and Nathan is a good boy, the kind of boy who treats his date right and respects authority.

Jared's a good boy, too and so he kisses Nathan.

***

Jared is halfway through his first year at university when he encounters his first broken heart.

It's not his own.

Nathan is a great guy.

Jared is fully aware that that sounds like a line, something to placate the dumpee in any given break-up, but that's not what this is. He's not breaking up with Nathan. Why would he do that? Nathan's a great guy.

But sex is important, Jared _knows_ that sex is important and he knows that Nathan isn't satisfied. Jared isn't, either but he's long since accepted the fact that he never will be.

It's not like they don't touch; they do. They neck and they cuddle and Nathan pinches Jared's nipples and Jared does what's expected and pulls Nathan's cock out of his pants, strokes it and licks it until it's over, until they're both sticky and wet.

Jared likes the cuddling. He really, honestly _likes_ it and he likes Nathan, too. The necking is okay, nice sometimes but the rest... He can deal. It's not horrible. It's a fact of life, something that needs to get done, like washing the dishes and making the bed.

Jared's going to have to live with that. For the rest of his life, he'll have to live with sex and desire as two completely separate entities, but Nathan can have more than that. He can have more than what Jared can give him.

Jared can't get it up, is the plain and simple fact, the one that they'd talked about at first, a little. The one they'd tried to fix with nothing but enthusiasm and will, for a little while. The one they'd become quite about in recent months, tried to ignore, tried to live with.

Jared can't get it up and Nathan can only come innocently on his face so many times without feeling like a creep, so they don't last much beyond the second or third boy who offers Nathan more than Jared ever could.

“I love you,” Nathan says to him, even as his cheeks flush and his eyes skitter across the courtyard, land on a second year with long, long lashes and his nose in a book. “I do, Jared.”

Jared thinks he might love Nathan, too, is the thing. He might. But not the way he should.

Nathan is a great guy. Nathan is the guy Jared wants to cook dinner with, watch movies with, do homework with. He's the guy that Jared wants to talk to, late at night when nobody else is around and he's the guy that Jared wants to trade lazy kisses with, so long as it doesn't go any further.

Because as much as Jared loves Nathan, as much as he likes to drink and play video games and host poker night with Nathan... he doesn't want to sleep with Nathan. He's tried, God, he's _tried_ to want to, but he can't force his body to feel something it doesn't. And Nathan deserves more than that.

“It's okay,” is what Jared says, so Nathan never suspects.

He'll maybe think Jared just isn't that into him, maybe think there's some kind of biological issue that Jared just isn't motivated enough to get over, maybe think it was a sweet, innocent high school romance that couldn't make it through college. 

Then again, maybe he knows the real reason; maybe he knows what Jared really is and he's doing them both a favour by ending it now.

“I love you,” Nathan says again, but this time it's an apology.

Jared smiles, sweetly and kisses Nathan one last time.

“It's okay.”

***

It's Jared's graduation day when he makes a promise.

It's over pizza and champagne and a toast to Jared's future, his moms and his younger cousin gathered around to wish him all the best, wish him success and a long life and happiness and _love_.

They take him out to dinner and kiss his cheek and hold his hand and they wish him love.

They know.

He's sure they know. They don't say anything, not directly but they're smart and they _know_ him and they've seen how he's only ever had one boyfriend and how broken up he _wasn't_ when it ended. They watched him grow, they were there when he was confused, when he was in denial, when he'd finally accepted.

He never told them, never even considered it, but they're his _moms_. They must have known.

Jared prays that he will do better. He prays that he'll bury that part of himself that makes him different and make his family proud.

Jared swears that he'll love.

Jared has always known that he's different.

Jared keeps his promise.

He falls in love in a heartbeat. It lasts one night.

The memory lasts a lifetime.

He meets her on a beach far from home, two months into his job as junior associate at the new food reclamation centre on his block and she rocks his world. She shakes his understanding, teaches him how easy it could be and how difficult it _will_ be. 

She reinforces what he already knows about himself. She binds his heart and she sets him free.

He's settled now, decent job, decent apartment, friends and church and Saturday afternoons in the deafening crowds of the boardwalk with Killer, his pet chinchilla tucked in his pocket. He'd wanted a dog. He's always wanted a dog but he's got exactly three hundred square feet of living space on the ninety-second floor, so it was either Killer or a goldfish, and goldfish don't really like it when you scratch behind their ears.

Jared's settled and he's responsible and he's lonely and he's restless.

He’s twenty-five years old and his best friend just got married – destination wedding at one of the nature reserves in the northwest, which is crazy, stupid expensive, but one of the last few places in the known universe that aren’t overcrowded – and he’s bored and he’s lonely and there are too many single men back at the cabana and too many of them seem to want a piece of him.

Usually he can handle it, flirt back with the ones that aren’t assholes and even sometimes he’ll sneak off with one of them, find a quiet place to talk. He’s even gone on a few dates since college, with people he’s met at parties and at work and at the grocery store.

It’s never horrible, sometimes it's even nice and they make polite conversation before Jared excuses himself because try as he might, he’s just not attracted to any of them. He doesn't feel what he knows he should feel when they smile and touch his thigh and brush their thumb over his jaw while they tilt his chin up to kiss him. And he can usually handle it – he's got years of experience – but not tonight. His best man duties ended an hour ago, when the grooms fucked off to their honeymoon suite and he’s had five fuzzy navels and despite being surrounded by friends, he feels more alone than he does when he's back in his apartment, by himself.

It’s dark out, sun set long ago and the stars are shining above the points of fire created by the festive lanterns. It’s warm. Too warm for the heavy weave of the casual dress shirt Jared had to wear for the ceremony, so he shucks it off, leaves it on one of the plastic chairs before he heads off down to the wet sand, closer to the ocean.

The shirt is ugly as hell: Bright green with heavy black stripes down the centre of his chest, like he’s in the world’s worst bowling league or something, but Andrew loves green and Kevin loves Andrew, so Jared’s stuck with the hideous piece of crap.

He wishes he could ‘accidentally’ lose it, that he could leave it on the chair and when he came back it would be gone for good, but the RFID tag in the collar was coded to his room at check-in, along with everything else he owns, so he knows he’ll get it back. Unfortunately.

Art walks by, just as he’s crossing the line of shadow created between the party and the darkness. He smiles at Jared and Jared smiles back, thinks about stopping, about going back and talking to him. Maybe something else.

Maybe he'll let Art touch him, maybe he'll touch back. Maybe, when Art kisses him Jared won't pull away, maybe he'll open his mouth wide, open his legs wider and invite Art inside, where nobody has ever been.

Because Jared’s a virgin, but he doesn't want to be. He doesn't want to be, but he’s just never met the right guy. He knows there isn't one, not for him.

Jared knows what he is, knows the word for it but he doesn't talk about it. Ever. Doesn't talk about how he wasn't attracted to the captain of the high school football team like all the other boys, or how even now he's yet to meet any man who can make him feel the way he feels when it's hot outside, and his neighbour Diane wears her short shorts.

He's past pretending, past hoping he'll change, that he'll meet somebody, some day, some place and change. There's no Prince Charming waiting out there for him, waiting and ready to make Jared _right_ , make him like he should be but everyone’s got to lose it sometime. And what better time and to what better man than the _other_ best man at Andrew’s wedding, right? But his smile falters when he really thinks about it, knows he doesn’t want it, not that way, not to someone he doesn’t even really know. 

So instead he waves and keeps walking, down to the water and kicks off his shoes, leaves them there and follows the seaweed and driftwood alongside the shoreline. It truly is gorgeous here. Insanely expensive but worth every penny to get away from it all, to get a break from the people and the noise and the hard-edged steel.

This resort is miles and miles of open land, beach on one side, forest on the other. The hotel itself only has six floors, only nine hundred rooms. On this entire peninsula, only ever a few thousand people at any given time, in rooms made of wood, real, honest to God _wood_ and feather beds and freshly pressed apple juice.

Before this trip, Jared hadn't had real juice, not any kind of _real_ juice since he left home eight years ago. Almost all the food he eats is recycled, reprocessed rotting leftovers turned into burgers or pasta or protein shakes. 

But not here. Here, there are bananas at breakfast and fresh vegetables for the salad and it's costing Jared nearly half his annual income for just a long weekend. But when he took that first sip of genuine hot chocolate and looked out over the water from his third floor balcony, not another soul in sight and no sound beyond the rustling of maple leaves in the gentle ocean breeze, he decided it was worth it.

Jared's moms are reasonably well off. No, scratch that. Jared comes from a long line of wealth – his great-great grandfather was one of the original scientists behind (and stockholders in) the company that produced the jumpgate technology – but he's always wanted to make his own way, even when it costs him, even when it hurts. Even when he could be eating like this every damn day if he wanted to, it's worth it to break his back, to know that he earned everything he has. It's worth it to work for twelve months and blow all his pay on four days in paradise.

That's not to say he doesn't take help from his parents when he needs it. He'll never starve, he'll never go cold or homeless or without high speed Global access. And there are days when he misses his old life, the things he had and the _space_ he had and the fresh strawberries and cream for breakfast. But it's a trade-off, he thinks. He can't give his mothers what he knows he should, so he can't take too much from them, either.

He doesn't want to owe them any more than he already does.

It's hard, but it's worth it.

It's still worth it two days later as he sits down and stretches his legs out in front of him, toes at a sand crab and smiles when it scurries further underneath a loose pile of sand that Jared kicked up.

He can still hear the party in the distance, the music a faint thump-thump against the soft splash of the waves as they break along the sand and he’s lazy, happy here with nothing to think about and nobody to bother him. He’s comfortable, relaxed and he's considering just falling asleep, letting the ocean guide his dreams and the sun coax him awake.

He starts to blink slower, lets his body relax and he leans back on his elbows. He won’t. He knows he won’t actually fall asleep here, but it’s a nice thing to imagine. Here he doesn’t have to pretend. He’s alone, just him and the water and the sand and neither of the others care that when he goes to church every Sunday what he prays for is to be just like everybody else, to like men, like the rest of the men do.

The beach doesn’t care that he’s different, that he's _wrong_ , that he's... heterosexual.

He sees the bright white circle of a jump ring blink into existence overhead and spares a thought for who’s on that ship, who's going to the colonies today and what they'll do when they get there. Workers, mostly, he thinks. It's Sunday night, so all the nine to five farmers and mechanics and waste management specialists with families still on Earth are headed back to work for the week.

Maybe some are new, though, he thinks. Maybe there are whole families on board, ready and eager for new challenges, a new life. Maybe there are singles, people without anyone else and nothing to leave behind and they can start over, make themselves new, different than they were on Earth.

He wishes he could go, too. Wishes they were going further than Luna, further than Mars. He wishes with all he has in him that he could wake up normal, tomorrow.

And that’s when he sees her.

She steps into his peripheral sight on his left, smiles and toes at the sand on the ground a few feet away from him. He turns his head and she’s got dark brown hair and big, big eyes and her hips curve out from a full, supple waist. Her feet are bare and she's dressed in a wrap skirt and a bikini top and she fills it all out, and then some. 

He blinks and realises his mouth is hanging open, so he quickly snaps it shut and moves his eyes up her body.

To her breasts. 

Dear God in Heaven, her breasts. Ample and rounded and barely held in by her top in no doubt an effort to tease all the pretty girls on the island. Jared doesn’t stand a chance, not that he intends to take one.

“Nice night,” she says and Jared smiles warmly back at her. He’s not flirting. He’d never outright flirt with a woman, it’s just friendly is his default setting. He pats the packed sand next to him and she smiles back and sits down.

The cheeks of her ass are rounded and plump and when she sits and curls forward, her lower belly rolls down just slightly over the waist of her skirt. Jared wants to press his face into her belly button, to lick and taste and knead all that flesh, to drown in it.

Women tend to be fuller than men, they look better with a bit of extra weight. They can carry a few additional pounds with poise and grace and an incredible amount of sex appeal.

God, Jared is so fucked.

“Yeah, it is. Quiet. Different from my home,” Jared says after she’s next to him and they both watch a fishing boat bob by about ten miles off the coast.

“Different from _everybody’s_ home,” she snorts, shaking her head. “I almost can’t even believe this is real.”

No, neither can Jared, really. The world government puts a lot of their remaining resources (those that aren’t put into population control and extra-solar planetary research) into keeping a select percentage of the Earth from suffering the population boom that hit the planet a thousand years ago. Sure, birth rates are declining and the head count is slowly going down and things aren't nearly as bad as they were five hundred years ago, but Jared could seriously do with this kind of breathing space on a regular basis.

“It’s nice,” he says and he’s looking at her. Fuck, he’s looking at her, at her neck, at the way her jaw ticks when she talks and the way her throat bobs when she swallows and then she laughs and… And Jared might as well drown himself in the shallow water because the sound of it and the look in her eyes (brown, dark, dark brown, now that Jared can see better) are going to do him in, anyway. 

They’re quiet for a long time. Things should be uncomfortable, they would be with anybody else, but they’re not with her and Jared doesn’t know why. Okay, he _does_ know why but he’s not willing to admit to it, not even in the privacy of his own head and soon the silence ends and the conversation starts up.

He learns that her name is Nancy and she’s here to celebrate her parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary and that they’re stupid rich (media moguls, from Alberta, almost as rich as Jared's family) and that she’s trying to get away from being set up with the daughter of her mother’s co-president.

“It’s like they just can’t accept that I want to find someone on my own,” she says and they’re lying flat now, staring up at the stars and the artificial glow of the moon, a patchwork of man-made light and shadow.

“Yeah, I know how that is,” Jared answers, feels his stomach in his throat as he dares to move a little closer. He’s taller (he’s taller than just about everyone and for once it’s a good thing) so he brings his arm down slightly from where it was lying in the sand and touches the tips of his fingers to her shoulder.

It’s not overt, he couldn’t be called out for this, it’s just a friendly touch, a welcoming warmth as she settles further into the sand and he tilts his neck so that his forehead is touching the top of her skull.

She stills next to him, he can feel it. It only lasts a moment, it’s gone almost before he even realises it’s happened, but it’s happened. And it means something.

People don’t flinch like that, not at such incidental touch, not unless they’re hiding something. Jared understands that better than anyone. So, he goes for broke. It could mean anything, true, but Jared’s hoping it means what he thinks it means. More than that, he's hoping it _doesn't_. He slides his foot over, presses his ankle to hers and he holds his breath.

A second passes.

Another and her finger twitches in the sand, next to his knee. Two more, three and she still doesn't move, doesn't speak.

Okay, now’s the time when he should turn his head, take in a deep breath of the cool ocean spray and cut his losses. He should stand up, smile at her one more time and go back to his room, go back to the party because this is dangerous.

He should leave, he knows that, but he doesn’t. He holds his breath and stays right where he is, because this has never happened before. He’s never felt this way, never met someone quite like her. He's never been so nervous, so terrified and exhilarated and peaceful all at the same time and he can’t put his finger on why, but he suspects she feels the same.

He hopes she makes a move soon, because he’s turning blue.

Jared's ribs feel too tight and he's about to let all the air out of his lungs under the guise of a cough, tell her he's late for something, that it was nice meeting, her.

And then she breathes first. She falls closer to Jared, ducks her head under his shoulder and her hand comes up to rest over his chest. Tiny, hesitant fingers slide over his skin, duck in between the lines of his ribs and he lets his breath out sharply, pulls in another slow one and holds her close when she freezes, looks up at him with wide, scared eyes.

She's as nervous as he is. She's never done this, either. Never dared. The cost is too high.

They don’t do much, after that. They’re both too afraid.

Afraid of what they’ve been taught, what they know and what it would mean. Afraid even of what it would feel like, to be with a member of the opposite sex this way. It feels right, _so damn right_ but he knows it's wrong.

So instead, they hold each other. Jared kisses her forehead and she wraps her arms around him and their legs tangle together and Jared feels his cock get hard. It's never happened before, not with any of the men he's been out with, not with so little stimulation. But hard he gets, so hard and he wants something to rub up against but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment, doesn't want to cheapen it.

Also, he's scared shitless of what might happen if he tries, so he doesn't. He just holds her, she holds him and they watch the stars.

They don’t sleep that night. They don’t move and they speak about incidentals, things that wouldn’t matter to anyone but the two of them until the sun starts to rise over the water in front of them. And instead of kissing her goodbye, Jared grabs the back of her neck, yanks her toward him and rests his forehead against hers.

“It wasn’t enough time,” he says, wants to weep, wants to build a raft from the driftwood and sail them off together, where nobody can ever find them. They don’t even know each other, but Jared doesn’t care. He never expected to fall in love, despite his promise, but he thinks this is what it would have felt like.

“We have forever,” she says and her voice is steady and solid.

“I have to go home. So do you.”

“Write me,” she says, pulls a pen from the purse that hangs from her shoulder and a tiny slip of paper. An actual pen and an actual slip of paper. Jared loves this island. “Receipt,” she says, with an awkward smile. “I stole the pen.”

They stand then, she presses the paper with her address on it into Jared’s hand and he clenches it tightly, like a lifeline.

He wants to kiss her.

He should kiss her.

He doesn’t kiss her.

***

He doesn’t write her, either.

It wouldn’t do any good.

He doesn't write her, but he doesn't ever forget her.

Jared settles back into his life – works through the week and goes out for drinks with his friends on Friday night and takes Killer to the boardwalk on Saturday. He goes to church with his friend every Sunday morning and he pretends, he prays every time that he'll be attracted to the handsome receptionist at his office building that flirts with him every morning. He prays that he'll suddenly develop a thing for the guy that cleans the pool in the basement of his condo. He prays to be normal, but he doesn't forget about Nancy.

***

Jared tries to stay out of politics.

He watches the news and he listens to the debates and he votes, sure, but he tries not to get too involved. He feels like kind of a hypocrite, a lot of the time; even the liberals aren't quite liberal enough for Jared's... personal preferences. The thing is, there have been plenty of political figures that Jared's had plenty in common with. They say a lot of things that make sense, they say a lot of things that he agrees with.

He agrees with them when they talk about how _natural foods_ should be a priority. He knows they're right when they say that libraries and community centres need more funding. He closes his eyes and sighs and thinks _finally_ when they talk about bigger tax breaks for eco-friendly businesses.

And fuck him all to hell, but he can't say he completely disagrees with them when they say – when nearly _every single one_ of them – says that heterosexual relationships are wrong.

He doesn't disagree, not really. He can't. He knows it's illogical, given his own nature. He knows it doesn't make any sense, but he understands that if men and women hooked up all... willy nilly, that the world would be overrun _again_ and he knows the world can't handle that. Not right now.

So yeah, he might be... straight, but he gets it. He doesn't like it, he thinks that especially considering some of the more severe birth control options that he's heard were used long ago that there should be _some_ way that men can be with women without bringing about The End.

It happens, sometimes. Obviously, straight people exist and sometimes babies are born the 'old fashioned way' but when that happens, it's not good for anybody. The parents wind up serving time and the kids are taken away, shipped to the other side of the planet, far away from the bad influences that created them in the first place, put with a loving, normal, respectable homosexual couple.

He understands and agrees that extreme measures would need to be taken but it should be _possible_ Even legal. Even if it was, even if it wasn't against the law and those kinds of people weren't thrown out of restaurants and hotels, Jared knows that he still wouldn't admit to what he is.

He knows this, knows all of this and he's got some damn strong opinions on that subject and nearly every other. He's strong-minded, intelligent and competent and politics are actually hugely important to him, but he can't take the risk that he'll say the wrong thing to the wrong person, so he stays out of it, if he can help it.

He stays out of it, the best he can.

But, his moms asked a favour of him, to come show his support to the aspiring governor, to smile and nod and agree with his parents, like the happy family they are. And they really and truly are, is the thing. Jared's mothers are exceedingly liberal, especially lately. They believe in love in all its wide and varied forms and they'd never look down their noses at anyone at all for being in any way different.

Jared knows this. Jared's grown up knowing this about his parents and he's been raised to accept and tolerate difference in all shapes and forms.

He knows his mothers would never think less of anyone based on sexual orientation, not any more than they would someone's eye colour or whether they could score on a break-away or how fast they could solve a partial differential equation.

What's in your head isn't anybody's _fault_ , it just is. Jared's grown up knowing acceptance and tolerance. He's known it in the absolute, if mostly in the abstract.

It's been a steadfast truth, but even still, Jared's secret is his own.

Despite his mothers' open-mindedness, he can't help the feeling that it only applies to 'other people'. They might think differently if it was their son. Besides, not everyone feels that way, _most_ people don't feel that way and Jared wants to fit in. More than anything, more than his own happiness, he wants to fit in, to be like everyone else. 

He sighs and he picks up a generically processed shrimp roll. It's not bad, not really but it's not like he had back on that island, six months ago. Nothing is. He doesn't imagine anything ever will be.

“I think it’s good, you know?” someone says from directly behind Jared and it takes him a moment to realise that the person is talking to _him_. “They should have equal rights.”

‘They’ is the heteros and potential governor Morgan is their best friend in this district. He's a fringe candidate for sure, exceedingly liberal and stepping on a hundred sets of toes with every speech he gives in which he says 'they're people, too'. He’s not one of them, but he’s running his campaign on the idea that they should be treated just like homosexuals, full rights under the law so long as they agree to sterilization. So long as they can't hurt anyone, Morgan argues, why not let love be love?

Jared agrees. Fuck, does Jared agree, but he has to be careful here. He _always_ has to be careful, but here maybe most of all. His moms are counting on him.

He turns though, smiles his best ‘son of money’ smile and he’s met with a wide grin and eyes so true that he forgets, for a moment, _how_ to lie.

“I mean… straight marriage is… out there, sure, but. Why not? Right? So long as they follow the same rules as everyone else, get a childbearing license, that they go through donors and in-vitro like everyone else… what’s the difference?”

Jared mentally snickers at the word _donor_. There's nothing funny about it, not really. Certain people, highly screened and government regulated people donate their sperm or eggs or the use of their uterus and they're rewarded handsomely for the service. They register with the government and prospective parents (one in four couples, who can prove beyond a doubt they can provide a good home) are given access to the lists, put into contact with the donors. Who live absolutely normal and complete lives outside that gig. 

But when Jared was a child, he used to think they were all kept in some kind of warehouse somewhere, a bunker underground or in the middle of a wide open field, rows and rows of cots set up where people did nothing but pump out children for the rest of the world to raise.

“I mean,” the guy goes on, dim light of the room dancing off the brilliant green of his eyes. They glow, like this. They glow and they set off the soft brown of the freckles that dot his cheeks and his nose, they contrast the light brown of sinfully tousled hair and highlight the shape of his cheeks and his mouth.

Jared feels his mouth go dry and he blinks a couple of times before he notices that the guy is smiling at him, still talking.

“There's that new injection, right?” he says. Jared feels like he's missed something, but he just nods along. He'd nod along to pretty much anything this guy said. It's incredibly unsettling. “So it's not like they could procreate, even if they wanted to.”

He's breathtaking, mind-numbingly beautiful. He makes some good points but above and beyond that to Jared and his belly at this moment, he's _pretty_. He's so pretty that Jared forgets he says _they_ like he's talking about lepers.

And Jared has never found another man beautiful before. Not ever in his life. It’s why he thought he was straight from the time he was thirteen and Steve tried to kiss him after a basketball game. But this guy… Okay.

Jared might need to start again about the eyes.

They’re _gorgeous_. And it might just be the straight talking, because proper gay men don’t wax poetic about beauty and true love, but… Right.

Green.

The eyes are green.

Good start.

They’re also kind and inviting and give you the hint that they’re telling a story and all you have to do is fall in close and you’ll hear it all, every last detail. Jared wants to hear it all.

“You think he can win?”

“Nah,” the guy answers, casually. “But I don't think he does, either. This campaign isn't really about an election for him. He just wants to get the message out there, maybe give some other people the courage to speak up.”

“Yeah, I… My moms. They're big supporters. I…” Jared thinks about lying. Then he lies. “I have a friend who’s… straight.” He's talking about Danny, he tells himself and it's true. He still thinks about him sometimes, wonders where he is and what's happened to him. “I want him to be happy.”

“I’m Jensen,” beautiful, green eyes says, smiling a little harder so Jared can feel it in his belly. He holds out a hand for Jared to shake.

“I’m Jared,” Jared answers, shakes Jensen’s hand right back. 

When Jared gets home that night he smiles, grabs a beer from the fridge and hums to himself while he feeds Killer. He thinks he might finally have his very first gay crush.

It feels good.

Jared has always known that he's different.

Jared's considered, at various points in his life, whether he's actually attracted to women. Sure, he thinks some of them are beautiful, but he thinks certain men are beautiful as well. Jensen's the best and most recent example of that, but he's not the only example. And Jared's never actually been with a woman, never touched one, never been _close_ except when he knew it was wrong, when adrenaline and rebellion were driving him.

It's possible – unlikely, but possible – that he's just not attracted to anybody. That he's made up this fantasy in his own mind about needing pussy because he knows he can never have it, because it lets him off the hook when he just smiles his way through it with his boyfriends.

Jared does like sex, though. At least, he thinks he should.

He likes jerking off.

He doesn't do it often, but when he does, it's pleasant.

And it's soft breasts and softer folds he sees in his mind's eye when he does it. 

***

It's beautiful outside when he leaves for work the next morning. A little chilly but the breeze is mostly a relief, cuts through the heavy air, the oppressive crowd of bodies and makes Jared feel like he can really breathe.

“I'm not stalking you,” a voice says. Too close, in his ear and Jared tenses, starts. He's been mugged more than a couple of times and he's not in the mood for it today. He stands up straight, looks to his side and immediately relaxes. “I promise.”

Jensen. Jensen's standing there next to him, Jensen from last night, who's handsome and polished and kind and funny and _interested_. There was no mistaking that, last night. Jensen is interested and Jared... Jared might be interested right back. He thinks for Jensen, he might be.

He lets out a breath, smiles and ducks his head. He's probably blushing. He can't help it; Jensen makes him feel like he's a high school freshman tugging at the heels of the class president, hoping to get noticed and dreading it. Jensen makes him _giddy_.

“I’m _mostly_ not stalking you,” Jensen corrects himself, smiling and hooking Jared’s arm through his own, walking with him toward wherever he’s going. “I got your address from Jeff. Uh… JD Morgan… And I’m actually only two blocks over, so you’re on my way to work. And if you want me to fuck off… done. I swear I’ll leave you alone. But I thought maybe we could walk together. You could tell me all about how exciting it is to fill those prescriptions.”

“I'd love to,” Jared says, quicker than he’d like, smiles a little too hard and lets Jensen pull him in closer, lets Jensen walk him all the way to work.

***

Jensen walks him to work every day that week and shows up to Jared's pharmacy when his shift is over that Friday with a smile and bouquet of flowers.

“Roses?” Jared asks, giving Jensen a crooked smile while his boss Chad looks on, amused. “Little obvious, don't you think?”

“You say obvious,” Jensen shrugs, “I say classic.”

Jared blushes slightly as he takes the flowers and he puts them in a makeshift vase – the large plastic tumbler that he keeps on his desk to hold his pens. Truth is, flowers are a big deal. They've been rare for as long as Jared's ever known. He's only ever been given flowers twice before in his life; once from his moms when he graduated college and once from Nathan the night of their high school prom.

He's never thought to give any, either. It's a lot of trouble to go through, a lot of expense.

Jensen must really think he's something special.

***

Jensen takes him out for dinner.

They talk and they laugh and when Jensen brings him home that night and kisses Jared, sweet and slow in Jared's lobby with his hand cupped tight to the back of Jared's neck, Jared lets him.

Jared not only lets him, he kisses back and while he still doesn't feel that same tingle he got on that beach, he tingles all the same. It's something, right?

It's more than he's ever had before.

***

Jensen takes him out to see a play at the community centre. He takes him ice skating (which isn't cheap – rinks are crazy expensive to maintain) and he takes him out for dinner again. He takes Jared to the movies and he takes him out for ice cream and when Jensen takes Jared on a silly, romantic, cliched picnic in the park on the roof of Jared's building, Jared is happy to report that he's pretty much gone.

Jensen is amazing.

Jensen is better than amazing. He’s tall and strong and funny and whatever Jared wanted to think of him, he’s honestly a good guy. He’s considerate and protective and respects Jared's boundaries. He's a teacher, makes a good living and Jared responds to him like they've known each other forever.

Jared wishes they had. Hopes they do.

Jensen kisses him every night, now. Every morning when they stop outside of Jared's work and Jared kisses back until they're both breathless.

Jared likes Jensen.

Jared _really_ likes Jensen.

It's not everything, there's still something missing but for the first time in his life, Jared thinks it might just be enough.

Jared still doesn't have that down low tickle that he had on that beach with Nancy but the serious case of hero worship he has going is bound to turn into that, right?

***

It's not lust between them, not exactly. Not on Jared's part at least, but it's something.

And it grows.

It grows unusually fast, considering Jensen hasn’t asked Jared to sleep with him, yet. No, Jensen seems content for them to go to movies (black and white theatres, supposedly old school) and have dinner together (Mostly Jensen’s house, with food grown in Jensen's garden but Jared mentioned Burger King once – some relic from days gone by he'd read about in a magazine – and Jensen flew them to New Brunswick, to the only one left out of once thousands).

“So, how rich are you?” Jared asks, when the car pulls up into Jared’s drive after their fifth date. He abruptly clamps his palm down over his mouth. Jensen hasn't exactly gone out of his way to hide his money. He lives in a _house_. It's small, sure but it's got an actual _yard_ , grass and something longer, more haphazard with delicate yellow flowers scattered messily along the back fence. There's even a small patch for a few tomato plants and a large walnut tree that shades nearly the entire property and must be at least three hundred years old. It's the most incredible thing Jared has ever seen in the city, so even if he hadn't flown Jared across the continent or given him flowers or fed him fresh raspberries, it would have been kind of obvious.

Still, that was kind of abrupt.

“Not as rich as you are,” Jensen answers, smiles at Jared while he does. Like it doesn't matter either way. “You're from money, too, right?”

“I didn't think teachers made that much,” Jared says, instead of answering. He's not trying to hide it – he couldn't any more than Jensen could. He's a Padalecki, he's a 'jumpgate' Padalecki. His family is worth millions. But it's not _Jared_ 's money.

“We don't,” Jensen laughs. “You're not the only one with a family fortune, so rest assured, I'm not after your money.”

“What do they do?” Jared asks. As much time as they've spent together, he doesn't really know all that much about Jensen, or his family. It's never come up. So far, he's been content with getting to know who Jensen is as a person. The finer details haven't been important, but if they're moving toward something more serious – and Jared assumes they are – they should probably start talking about things like that. “Your parents. I mean, you never talk about them. Are they...”

Jared trails off as it dawns on him that maybe they're dead, or maybe Jensen doesn't have a very good relationship with them, or maybe they're serving twenty-five to life for murder one and grand theft.

“It's just my mom, technically,” Jensen answers, looking straight out the car windsheild. 

“Technically?” Jared asks and Jensen takes a deep breath, looks over at Jared.

“You remember where we met?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Jared answers, frowning at the non-sequitor. “JD Morgan's campaign fundraiser. Your uncle, right?” That had been months ago now, the election come and gone and Morgan's short-lived political aspirations well and truly behind him. He's in real estate, he thinks Jensen mentioned, once.

Jensen looks at Jared then, really looks at him, _hard_.

“When have you ever known anyone with an actual _uncle_?”

Uncle, aunt, sister, brother; those aren't terms that are used very much. They used to be, Jared knows, back when families were large, organic and even when people do use them these days it's usually to connote a particular closeness, very special friendship, a relationship that.... Oh. _Oh_.

“Oh. That's...” He doesn't know what to say. 

“Yeah, they don't exactly advertise. And I know the government usually doesn't give kids to singles, but she's got friends in high places. Plus, a lot of money. Not _jumpgate_ money,” Jensen smiles, turning back to Jared, “but she does alright in the greenhouse business.”

Jared's eyes widen slightly. She must do more than alright. Fresh produce is worth its' weight in gold. And it explains the oranges and zucchini Jensen served him last week. 

“Can I... You think you could show me, sometime? It must be amazing, all that nature, all that life. All that _green_. God, I can't imagine.”

Jensen leans across the seat then, kisses him. Jared's belly flops over.

“You want to come back to my place?”

Jared's not ready for sex. He knows he'll have to do it, at some point. He knows that and he accepts that and he doesn't even think it'll be so bad, not with Jensen, but he's not ready for it to be today.

But they've been dating for two months and Jared really likes Jensen and he doesn't want this to end. He doesn't want to try to fake it with someone he doesn't like nearly as much and he sure as hell doesn't want to end up alone.

“Sure,” he smiles, a little shaky but he kisses Jensen again, to make up for it.

***

Jensen doesn't try to have sex with him that night.

He sits next to Jared on the bench in his back garden and he wraps them both up in a blanket and they watch the still of the tomato plants, the way the harsh white of the door light plays off the leaves.

Jensen tells him about bees. How they used to pollinate all the flowers, how when they died out it was the beginning of the end of traditional farms, certainly of wild vegetation. Jared's heard of them; they were small, like flies and kind of yellow and they bit.

“Not bit,” Jensen corrects. “They stung. One sting, that's all they had. They must have really meant it, because when they did, they died.”

“So why would they?” Jared wonders out loud. Believing in something enough to die for it – that's not really something he can relate to. He's always preferred the option without the body count.

Jensen doesn't answer, just pulls Jared closer, arm wrapped tight around Jared's shoulders.

Jared lets him.

***

Jared likes Jensen.

He likes him through their fifth and sixth dates, when Jensen takes him to the movies and the natural history museum, and he likes Jensen when they talk for hours in the lobby of Jared's building, after.

He likes Jensen when he invites Jared over for supper, home-cooked and delicious. He likes Jensen when he's full from rare sirloin and tipsy on expensive Shiraz. 

Jared likes him always.

Even when Jensen leans over him on Jensen’s bed and presses his hand to Jared’s half-interested cock, when he strokes it to hardness and beyond…. When Jared comes and clings to Jensen like his life depends on it.

Six months Jensen's waited, before he put his hand down Jared's pants. And when it's over, he doesn't ask for anything in return, except to fall asleep in each others' arms.

Jared likes Jensen, he's even attracted to Jensen. He's funny, he's smart and he's sweet and Jared feels warm and happy and _good_ when he's with Jensen.

Yeah, Jensen is a good guy. And Jared could definitely do worse.

 

***

It's easier after that.

Jared spends most nights at Jensen's house and most of the rest, Jensen calls to say goodnight, calls that leave Jared smiling and sleepy and looking forward to the next night.

Jensen kisses Jared soundly in the morning on the way to work; kisses him hello when they meet in Jared's lobby or outside the coffee shop on the corner, with Jensen's hand stuck into Jared's back pocket and when Jared opens his mouth and closes his eyes, it's easy.

Jensen holds his hand in the shopping square in the afternoon, crowds him up against the back of a market stall and it's easy when Jared lets Jensen settle in the V of his legs, rub against him until they're both hard and breathless.

Jensen touches Jared in bed at night, holds the back of his neck and grips his thigh and cups his hip. He kisses Jared and jerks him off, sinks to his knees. He swallows Jared down and his fingers ease between Jared's cheeks and Jared looks out Jensen's bedroom window, at the daisies growing up from the box hooked over the sill and he looks back down at Jensen and it's easy.

It's so easy, the whole relationship. So blindly comfortable that for the first time in his life, Jared lets his guard down.

Jared has always known that he's different.

Jensen invites him out to throw some darts and have a few beers with some of his over-privileged friends. Dennis is young, younger than Jared and twice as hyper and he's clearly got a big fat crush on Louis-Phillipe, who's barely 35 and already divorcing his third husband. Louis-Phillipe, for his part, does a good job pretending he doesn't notice and Lacey smiles to herself while she privately encourages them.

Lacey's wife Urszula is tall, with long, long hair in braid after braid that falls around her shoulders and down her back. Her skin is starkly pale and her lips are painted with a deep, cherry red. Her chest is ample, her hips are full and when Dennis tells a joke, his hands flailing and his eyes wide at the punch line, she laughs low and hard and Jared can feel it through his body when he 'accidentally' presses a little closer to her in the booth.

He realises what he's done the very second he's done it and he breaks his smile, looks down at the table and purposefully pushes himself to Jensen's side.

God, he's so stupid. Urszula is beautiful, of course she is, but Jared's seen beautiful women before. Plenty of them. He's been attracted to his fair share as well, but he's never plastered himself to their sides before.

He blames the drink, the five shots whisky and he doesn't know how many glasses of beer and he blames the fact that Jensen relaxes him, Jensen's friends relax him. It's all so easy, he feels like himself and he slipped, he couldn't help that.

Louis-Phillipe throws a balled up straw wrapper at his nose and he scrunches his face up and buries it into Jensen's neck.

“Help!” he squeals and they all laugh. All of them but Jensen, who turns to him with an odd sort of expression. Before Jared can really worry about it, though it melts into a smile and then Jensen leans in and kisses him and then everyone at the table is throwing all the balled up wrappers and napkins and empty sugar packets they can get their hands on.

Jensen takes a maple sugar peanut to the corner of his eye and his mouth opens wide and happy as he laughs it off, wiping the side of his face.

“Asshole,” he says to Lacey, without looking away from Jared. “You're just jealous.”

Then he takes Jared's mouth in another sweet, long kiss and by the time Jensen's done with him, Jared has forgotten everything else but the feel of Jensen's lips against his own.

“Let's get out of here,” he says, straight into Jared's mouth.

Jensen's friends are hooting, laughing, making sound effects and hand motions to imply that Jared's got Jensen well and truly whipped. 

Jared just smiles on the way out and Jensen gives them all the finger.

“So,” Jared says, later on when they're falling asleep in Jensen's bed after the movie. “Your friends think you're pretty gone for me.”

“My friends are right,” Jensen tells him, casual as you please. He kisses Jared's neck and kicks his leg over Jared's, pulling him closer.

There's no pressure for anything more. There never is.

“If they only knew what a gentleman you are.”

“I'd never hear the end of it.” Jensen's smiling when he says it but Jared can tell it's a sensitive spot.

“I won't tell if you won't,” he promises and he falls asleep to Jensen's butterfly kisses over his forehead and Jensen's arm around his chest.

***

When Jensen says 'I love you' for the first time it's with his lips on Jared's ear and his hand on Jared's naked belly.

They're sitting on Jensen's backyard swing and they're shirtless because of the heat and one moment Jensen's telling him all about this new strain of tomato his mom is working on and the next he's telling Jared he loves him.

To be fair, it's not like Jared wasn't expecting this moment.

They've been together almost a year now, he knows Jensen's eyes, what's behind them and the way his smile softens when he looks at Jared. Jared's prepared for this. He's practised in the mirror, told his reflection 'thank you', or 'I'm glad'. Sometimes he thought he wouldn't say anything at all, he'd just finally open his legs for Jensen, answer with his body, instead.

After all, it's not that Jared's holding out for any particular reason. He hasn't initiated sex, sure, but neither has Jensen and if Jensen ever did, Jared probably wouldn't turn him down. There's no reason to. Sex with Jensen probably isn't the sex Jared would choose for himself if the world were a vastly different place, but Jared's grown up a little since college. He enjoys Jensen, he cares for Jensen, he'll probably spend the rest of his life with Jensen. Why not make the best of it?

But when Jensen holds Jared close as the sun sets over the walnut tree in the corner of Jensen's yard and Jensen takes a deep breath, lets those three life-changing words out on the exhale, Jared doesn't do any of the things he practised or imagined.

“I love you, too,” Jared says, before he can stop himself. Before he even realises what he's doing, before he's even thought it through, he's said it. He's said it and he can't take it back.

That's what you get for things being easy, he supposes. He didn't mean to say it, he shouldn't have said it but he's not even sorry, not really. He meant it, in the moment. He means it still, if he's honest. Not in the way Jensen does, not in the way Jared wishes he did, but he means it.

He does love Jensen. Jensen is his best friend, he's kind and he's funny and he's nice to look at. They get along like they've known each other their whole lives and Jared likes when Jensen kisses him, likes when Jensen holds him close when they curl up on the couch to watch a movie.

It's enough, he figures. As for the rest, he's been pretending this long. He can keep on pretending.

***

Things move faster, after that.

They have sex one night soon after, for the first time. One normal night after a normal date and a normal movie on the couch and a normal swing on the swing in Jensen's back yard, they have sex. Their first time together, Jared's first time at all and Jared's the one who initiates it. He appreciates how slow Jensen's been moving, how he's been respectful of Jared's boundaries and lack of experience but this is something that's been building inside Jared since he was a kid, since he first started to realise he might be different.

It's oppressive now, this massive weight on his chest reminding him every day that he won't ever be like everybody else, no matter what he does or says or pretends, but he _wants_ to be. He really wants to be and Jensen's been so good to him. Jared knows it's coming, sooner or later. 

Jared won't let what happened between him and Nathan happen with Jensen. Sex is inevitable and all the more foreboding for him not having any yet. He might as well get it over with.

He takes Jensen's hand and leads him inside the back door to the house, through the kitchen and down the hallway and into the bedroom.

“Tired?” Jensen asks with an innocent smile, kissing Jared's cheek as his fingers twirl through locks of Jared's hair. 

“Not really,” Jared answers. He steps back to unfasten his pants, lets them slide down his legs and pool around his ankles. He steps out of them and his underwear follow and the wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of longing on Jensen's face makes him chuckle and blush.

“Jared,” Jensen breathes out. His hand comes up, his fingers tracing over Jared's chest and he steps closer, wraps his arm around Jared's middle and tuck his face into the crook of Jared's neck. “Fuck, Jared, you're so beautiful. I love you, so fucking much.”

“I love you, too,” Jared says again, tilting his neck to give Jensen more freedom, more room to kiss and lick and take Jared's delicate skin sharply between his blunt teeth. “Fuck me, Jensen.”

Jensen pulls back, looks like he's about to ask if Jared's sure, if he really wants this but Jensen doesn't. He just smiles, shucks off his own pants and lays Jared out on the bed.

Jared closes his eyes, Jensen takes his time. He kisses Jared, long and slow, sweet. He kisses down his chest and over his belly and he sucks Jared's dick until Jared is arching his back and spreading his legs and grabbing at Jensen's head, whimpering. He slicks his fingers and opens Jared up, holds him close when he finally slips inside.

It's... nice. It feels good, Jared gets off and so does Jensen but that spark isn't there, that spark that Jared's been missing ever since he first discovered it, that night on a far away beach, a million lifetimes ago.

When Jensen's hips eventually stop stuttering he makes to lift up, to shift his weight off Jared but Jared's legs lock together around his waist, his hands grip tight to Jensen's shoulders.

“Stay,” he gasps. “Just... just for a minute. Stay.”

Jensen groans and grinds down again, cock brushing up against Jared's over-worked prostate and Jared's own spent, messy dick is trapped between their bellies. Jared groans, too. It's too much.

Jensen's lips press to Jared's neck, over his jaw and up to his mouth. His tongue snakes inside, twirls around Jared's and Jared's hands hold him there, right there against him until they're both out of breath.

“Fuck,” Jensen says, when he can suck in enough air to form words. “Fuck, I needed that.”

Jared laughs, then and Jensen joins him and when Jensen finally does work himself free, when massages the blood flow back into Jared's legs and he cleans them up with a discarded pyjama top, Jared's glad they did this.

***

The next day, over pancakes with dried blueberries and synthetic, orange-flavoured sugar water, Jensen asks Jared to move in.

“You're here half the time, anyway,” Jensen reasons, around a mouthful of breakfast.

“Well, hey,” Jared jokes. “Can't think of a better reason to live with someone than convenience.”

Jensen rolls his eyes and leans across the table to press a sloppy, disgusting kiss to Jared's mouth. Jared can taste syrup and batter when he licks his lips.

“I want you here,” Jensen tells him. “All the time. I want a life with you, Jared. What do you say?”

What _can_ he say?

That he'd like a life with someone with more under the shirt and less in the pants than Jensen? Nancy was forever ago and Jared never loved her, not really but he's always been in love with _idea_ of her, always hoped, wished somewhere in the back of his mind that he might have that, one day.

He never will, of course. He's not that brave, not that stupid. He doesn't want to be different.

“I'd like that,” he answers. It's the truth; he would like that. Right here, right now, in the world they live in, he finds – when he considers it – that he would very much like to have a life with Jensen.

***

“Hey, Mom,” Jared says, when the call connects. He smiles at his mom's face, translucent and three-dimensional, hovering on his kitchen table. The room is pretty bare except for a few boxes on the floor and Killer's cage roped up and ready to go by the door.

His apartment is small and he doesn't have much stuff and it should all fit easily into Jensen's trunk.

“Jared, baby!” she greets, happily. “We haven't heard from you in months! How have you been, sweetheart?”

“Good, Mom. I'm good. How 'bout you guys?”

“Oh, same old same old, darling. We're on the verge of a breakthrough for a new power source for the jump flights, so that's keeping us busy as ever. And how's the pharmacy?”

“Good. Good. Everything's fine at work.”

“And Jensen?” she asks. “How is he doing?”

“He's... he's great. That's actually why I'm calling.”

***

Exactly one week after Jared agrees to move in with Jensen, he introduces Jensen to his mothers. He should have done it a long time ago, he knows that. He met Jensen's mother more than six months ago and they've been getting together for supper every month or so since then. Jared and Jensen and Kathy and 'Uncle' JD.

But now it's real, now it's really real. Jensen is a part of his life, a true and unavoidable and permanent part of his life. And it's not a lie, not really because he _does_ love Jensen but it's not really the truth, either. Maybe that's why it's taken so long. He hasn't wanted his family to see through the mask.

He smiles though, and holds Jensen's hand when they step up to the table at the restaurant, where his mothers are waiting.

“Ms. Padalecki,” Jensen says, smiling widely as he reaches out a hand to one of Jared's moms. 

“Holly, please,” she corrects, taking Jensen's hand. “And my wife, Gina.”

“Holly,” Jensen says easily, bending to kiss her knuckles, then stands and turns.

“Gina,” he says, falling into Gina's embrace with practised ease, kisses her once on the cheek. “It's so great to finally meet you both.”

“You too, Jensen,” Gina tells him. “Please, sit.”

They do. They sit and they drink and they eat. They talk. About work and the weather and the latest movie releases and finally, after the dessert plates have been cleared and they're all working on their second cups of coffee, Jared says it.

“I'm moving in with Jensen.”

All sound and movement at the table ceases for a heartbeat.

Then it's a cacophony, wide smiles and kisses and the clinking of mugs, congratulations and well wishes.

They're happy for him.

He's doing the right thing.

***

Two weeks later they get engaged.

Jared comes home from work to find Jensen in the backyard. It's Jared's favourite thing about Jensen's house – _their_ house – and there's a picnic set up on the small patch of grass by the tomato plants.

“What's the occasion?” Jared asks, sitting down next to Jensen. He takes the glass of wine Jensen offers and lifts a couple of sandwiches onto the empty plate in front of him.

Jensen shrugs. He takes a bite off a carrot stick and then steals half a sandwich from Jared. Processed protein food product and generic condiment spread. 

“Was thinkin' about asking you to marry me,” Jensen says. And he says it so casually, like he's pointing out a plane flying overhead, that it takes a few seconds for Jared to register the words. His brain trips over itself for a few seconds, but he recovers quickly.

“Thinking about it? Any idea which way you're leaning?” he asks, snagging the rest of Jensen's carrot and popping it into his mouth.

Jensen cracks a small smile.

“Well, it's just I don't like to go in blind. Thought I'd feel you out, first, get an idea what you might say, if I did ask.”

“Hmmm,” Jared nods and then they're both quiet for a while, while they eat.

Jared's heart is racing, he's sure he's sweating, his hands are shaking when he brings his wine glass to his mouth for a sip. Jensen, next to him, is smiling easily, propped back on one arm lazily as he opens up the tin of cookies for dessert. Jackass.

This is huge. This is... not life-changing, not really but it's permanent in a way that signing out of his lease just isn't. And Jared wants it. He's already made this decision, already wrestled with his conscience and his libido and his heart and he's committed to this life with Jensen.

“Hey Jensen?” he asks, taking a cookie.

“Yeah?”

“Will you marry me?”

Jensen barks out a sharp laugh, reaches into the breast pocket of his overshirt and comes out with a thin, gold band between his fingers. He holds it out and raises an eyebrow and Jared's breath catches.

“Yeah,” he answers his own question, and Jensen's. “Yes, Jensen.”

Jensen slips the ring onto Jared's finger and the tickle in Jared's chest moves significantly lower when he looks up and sees the look Jensen's giving him.

They fuck right there on the cookies and the next day Jared calls his moms with the good news.

***

A month after Jared moves in with Jensen Jared finds out that Jensen is in the army reserve.

“ _What_?” he asks, standing across from Jensen as he tosses some clothes into the open duffel bag on the bed.

“It's only two weeks a year,” Jensen shrugs. 

“What, exactly is only two weeks a year? And why didn't you tell me before you were on your way out the door?”

Jensen stops packing and sighs, walks around the bed to take Jared's hand.

“I'm sorry. I honestly just didn't think of it. I usually don't, not until it comes up every year. And it's just to keep up with training, just in case.”

“Just in case what? There's a war and you have to fight it?” Jared's being snippy, he knows that but Christ. He knows Jensen served two years when he was eighteen, before he quit for college, but how the hell did he not know that the man he's marrying is still basically in the army.

“Jared, come on. The stuff I did, the stuff I _do_ , it's mostly humanitarian. I help set up free clinics, food banks, things like that in the outercities. Keep riots under control. Nobody's fought in a war, not a real one anyway, in a hundred years. I'll be fine.”

And he knows Jensen will. He's strong and he's young and he's vital and Jared honestly can't imagine anything bad ever happening to him. That's not even really what this is about.

“You should have told me sooner.”

Jensen leans forward and kisses him, soft and easy and he breathes out as he tilts Jared's face down to press their foreheads together.

“I'm sorry,” he says, again. “I really am. I'll be back in two weeks.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Still love me?” Jensen asks, teasing with that smile that Jared can't really resist.

“Yeah,” he answers, smiling back just a little. “Okay.”

Jensen's fingers work their up Jared's sides, under his ribs where they dig in harder and wriggle and Jared barks out a sharp laugh as he tries to bat Jensen away. Jensen just leans in closer until he forces Jared back onto the bed and when he crawls on top of him, they both stop laughing.

***

Most of Jared's friends know Jensen, by this point. Or, at least they've met him a few times. Kevin, of course, immediately agrees to be Jared's best man and Steve and Li-Ann and Peter start to pull up wedding plan apps on their Globals as soon as he breaks the news over pizza and beer on Wednesday night.

“You don't bring him around, much,” Li-Ann says, absently as she scrolls through page after page of venue options. “What were you thinking? Fall wedding? You can probably do late summer, but you'll be pushing it.”

“I like him,” Kevin tells them all, nodding as he chews. “He's quiet but he's intense. And I've seen the way he looks at you. I get the feeling he's not going to take you for granted.”

Jared smiles and nudges his knee against Kevin's under the table. Yeah, there's a reason Kevin's his best friend.

“Plus,” Steve says, “He's hotter than the sun.”

“Steve!”

“No,” Peter agrees. “That's true. I'd totally hit it.”

“He is kinda stupidly pretty,” Li-Ann adds. “Plus, military? That's kind of hot.”

Jared gapes and even Kevin shrugs and nods along.

“They're not lyin'. You got yourself a grade-A piece of ass, my friend.”

“Okay,” Jared says, snatching the pitcher of beer and pouring the last of it into his own glass. “ _My_ fiancee. Back off, vultures.”

They laugh and Jared smiles and they're right. Jensen's a great catch, Jensen's a _knock-out_. And if he falls asleep that night, tipsy and curled up on Jensen's side of the bed and thinking about how the waitress's legs looked in that short skirt she was wearing, well.

Everybody fantasizes, once in a while.

*** 

They get married in October. 

The leaves are turning and the wind whips sharp and loud through the flowers, before it settles.

They hold the ceremony in their backyard, a small affair with their family and closest friends. It's nice when the wind dies down, warm and sunny and they eat fresh fruit and salad and Jared and Jensen dust off the barbeque and grill honest to God steaks.

They dance afterward and drink way too much wine and when that's all gone they break out the hard liquor. They sing, they laugh, Jensen kisses him under the twinkle lights that twine between the treetops while their friends hoot and holler. Jared's honestly never had a better time.

Once the last of their guests have left for the night, Kathy and Jeff, with sloppy kisses to Jared's cheek and Jensen encircled in weepy hugs, they take their time cleaning up.

There's not much to do – dishes in the dishwasher, empties in the recycling bin. Napkins in the laundry and they shut down the music, turn off the lights and Jensen takes Jared to bed.

“Jensen, I...” Jared says, when Jensen strips them both and ushers Jared between the sheets. “I want you to know that I love you. I really, really love you and I'm going to do my best, every day, to make you as happy as you make me.”

“I know everybody says this,” Jensen says, settling down on top of Jared, “but you really have made me the luckiest man in the world.”

Jared's eyes start to water – he can't help it.

“God, Jensen,” he breathes, takes Jensen's face between his hands and kisses him.

If Jared were gay, life would be a whole lot easier but it's times like this, when he's tipsy and happy and turned on and he's got his best friend in his arms that the lines blur and it doesn't really matter so much.

Jared opens his legs wider, moans and gasps and throws his head back when Jensen's hand works between them to open Jared up.

Maybe one day Jared will take Jensen up on his offer to do this the other way, with Jensen spread out on Jared's thick cock but not today. Jared might not be one hundred percent gay, but he doesn't hate to get his ass stuffed. Besides, he's never felt comfortable as the aggressor. 

The idea of taking charge in the bedroom makes him feel guilty, like a fraud. As happy as he is with Jensen, Jensen's not his first choice. He doesn't want to lie.

So he opens himself up for Jensen, takes the pleasure that Jensen freely offers. And Jensen... Jensen offers pleasure like it's going out of style. His fingers work Jared loose just right, prod and crook in exactly the right places and his lips light Jared's skin on fire. He sucks and he jerks and he fucks and he makes love like it's some kind of Olympic sport, like he's trying to prove his worth to Jared with each and every touch.

And Jared wants to give that back to Jensen, that same kind of promise, that devotion. He really, honestly does but right now the closest he can come is to react, to react openly and honestly to everything Jensen does to him, to let Jensen see him.

He gasps when Jensen pushes inside, his face twists up in pleasure when Jensen takes his aching prick into his fist. His breathing speeds up when Jensen starts to jerk him and he lets out these tiny little mewls when Jensen pounds into him, over and over.

“So good,” he whispers, when Jensen's hands curl into his hair and yank his head back, when he kisses deep purple bruises into the hollow of Jared's neck.

“I love you,” Jensen pants against his throat. “Fuck, Jared. Spend my whole life showing you. You're gonna think I'm worth it.”

And if Jensen hadn't chosen that exact moment to slam forward, so deep and hard inside Jared that Jared can practically taste it, if he hadn't swivelled his wrist so exactly, perfectly right, Jared might have wondered about the phrasing.

As it is, Jared's too busy riding out his orgasm, clawing at Jensen's back to take him along for the ride, biting down into Jensen's pulse point until Jensen cries out and bucks back.

Once they're finished, when they're breathing slow again and curled around each other and Jensen's fast asleep, snoring lightly into the back of Jared's neck, Jared lets himself think about what just happened.

Jared said 'I do' today. Someone asked him if he would love Jensen, if he would promise to honour him and stand by him, be his partner through thick and through thin, support him and lean on him and to do it forever and Jared said 'I do'.

And he meant it.

***

Jared's life after that doesn't feel like anything he ever would have expected for himself. And at the same time, it totally and completely does.

***

Jared works longer hours than Jensen.

Wait, that's not true.

Jared works longer hours _outside the house_ than Jensen does. Jensen's class lets out at three in the afternoon and Jared doesn't usually make it out of the pharmacy until at least six, sometimes seven. Jared also works the occasional Saturday and every once in a while he gets a call at two in the morning when someone on the night shift runs into trouble.

Jensen grades papers and works up lesson plans at all hours, sure. And he coaches the wrestling team on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but he's home every day by five. He cooks dinner, he tidies up, he does the laundry. He keeps the garden on the weekends and he takes care of the banking and he shops for groceries.

Jared, when he lived on his own, tended to eat rations most of the time, when he wasn't getting take-out and he always let the chores pile up until he had no choice but to spend the entire weekend digging out from under a pile of laundry and dirty dishes.

He should be glad that Jensen's taking care of it all, but it only ramps up his guilt.

Jensen's more sexually attracted to Jared.

Jensen's more emotionally invested in Jared.

Jensen's more dedicated to keeping up their household and making things easier on his husband.

Except he's not. It seems that way. It does to Jared most of the time and it sure as hell must to Jensen but it's not true, not really.

Jared loves Jensen with all his heart and he wants to contribute more than a paycheque and the ability to turn on the coffee maker in the morning.

When he tells Jensen so, Jensen just smiles, kisses him and says, “I fell in love with you for your coffee maker.”

“Jensen, I'm serious. You do everything around here. I want to help, do my fair share.”

Jensen shrugs.

“I honestly didn't realise you weren't. I'm doing what I've always done and now I've got you to wake up to in the morning. Trust me, Angel, I'm not complaining.”

Jared swallows down the uncomfortable feeling he gets, the feeling that Jensen looks at him like some kind of doll, something to look pretty and keep his bed warm. That's not what Jensen's saying, he knows it's not. 

“I know. I know you're not. But I want to take care of you, like you take care of me.”

Truth is, Jared wants to take care of anyone. He loves Jensen, he's married to Jensen so Jensen seems like the most likely candidate, but Jared's a nurturer. It's something he's discovering about himself as he matures and although it's probably too late at this point, he thinks he might have made the wrong career choice.

He comes from a family of scientists and Jared's always been interested in chemistry. He's always been interested in helping people, too but up until recently he's been trying really hard to hide himself, so pharmacist had seemed like a great fit.

Looking back, knowing where he'd end up, he might have chosen teacher, like Jensen.

Nurse, even.

Jensen smirks, opens his mouth and leans forward like he's about to make a lewd comment. Jared knows him well enough to know a comment about Jared 'taking care of him' in the bedroom is on the tip of his tongue but after a few seconds looking at Jared, Jensen's face falls.

“Okay,” he says instead, seemingly considering, taking Jared seriously. “Okay. If you want to take the recycling to the curb in the mornings, that would be great.”

That's not really what Jared meant, but he smiles anyway.

Jared has always known that he's different.

Jared has watched plenty of porn.

Most of it was back when he was younger, when he was first realising he was... _different_ and he watched it to try to be normal. He watched it and touched himself, brought himself off to the men on the screen, to the way they touched each other, to the way they moaned and grunted and slammed their hard, strong bodies against one another.

It was beautiful, he remembers thinking. The men in the videos he'd managed to get his adolescent hands on were clearly actors, clearly faking their way through sexual bliss. In hindsight, at least. Back then, Jared didn't know better. He'd honestly thought they'd loved each other and he'd longed for someone to touch him like that, to love him like that.

He'd watched and told himself it was okay, he really wouldn't mind, he'd even _like_ it if a man touched him like that. He had to like it. Those guys on the screen did, right? They found the right kind of love, surely Jared could as well.

He's even seen a few girl on girl scenes, caught them in passing at a friend's house or clicked the wrong link on some spam mail and that one time that he accidentally walked in on his moms... yeah, that thought's better left unfinished.

In any case, Jared's no stranger to porn and despite his own proclivities – and unbeknownst to nearly everyone in his life – he's not a prude. He's a sexual being. Or, he would be, if he lived in a vastly different world.

And so as his pointer hovers over the link on his pad he swallows, takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax into the plush living room couch. Jensen's at work, the doors are locked, nobody is going to know.  
He closes his eyes and clicks.

The room isn't immediately filled with moaning and slapping and begging, just a low, cheesy strain of music so Jared cracks his eyes open. On the screen, right in front of him is a man and a woman. They're fully clothed, but from the looks of the way they're devouring each other's mouths they're not going to stay that way for long.

The woman in the video pushes the man back against the wall, grips his wrists in her hands and slams them up next to his head. He winces, then smiles and she smiles back and they kiss again, messy and greedy until she's clawing at his shirt, yanking it over his torso (and lord, is he ripped) and slamming him down on the bed.

Jared starts to breathe heavier.

The woman smiles again, slowly, calculated and as she strips herself bare of her ratty t-shirt and torn jeans. She's pretty. Not as pretty as Nancy was, not as full and welcoming. She's harder, thinner, but her breasts are large, they bounce slightly when she unclasps her bra and Jared bites his lip when she lies down on the bed, spreads her legs and takes the man's head in her hands.

The camera angle changes, sets up between her legs next to the guy's face. He licks at her, kisses her folds and she moans and Jared feels himself start to grow hard.

He wonders. Wonders what that would feel like on his tongue, what it would taste like. Would it be like Jensen's cock, or would it be something foreign? Would it tickle, would it leak, like Jensen?

Jared takes a quiet breath and shifts, spread his legs a little. He's not touching himself, he's not quite hard, not yet. He's still too nervous. He's still imaging that taste on his tongue and wondering if it would really confirm what he's known all along, or just cause him even more confusion.

“It's pungent,” a voice says from behind him, low and rough.

It's Jensen. Jared knows that even before he scrambles to hit cancel on the video and turn to his husband, guiltily. 

“What,” Jared swallows, “what are you doing home?”

Jensen ignores him. Just stares at the black screen on the coffee table.

“Not like cock. Cock is more bitter, salty. Pussy is... meaty. It's stronger, like you left your processed protein rations out too long. Not bad, but...”

He shrugs and Jared shakes his head, opens his mouth to apologise. He owes Jensen an apology, he knows that.

“Don't,” Jensen cuts him off. He steps around the couch, pushes the pad to the far side of the table and sits down next to Jared. “Don't lie, sweetheart. You're not the only guy in the world who gets off on watching some pussy once in a while.”

Clearly he's not, not if the bounty of underground porn he found on the subject is any indication. Speaking of which...

“How do you know?” he asks. He's sorry, sure. He's nervous, still. He doesn't want Jensen to find out his secret but it's a little late for that and Jensen just admitted to one of his own. Jared latches on, because maybe they have more in common than Jared ever thought.

“Know what?” Jensen asks. He wraps an arm around Jared's shoulders and smiles at him, kisses down his neck so Jared knows he's still loved, no matter what.

“What... what _pussy_ tastes like.”

Jensen breathes in deeply next to him and lets the breath out incredibly slowly.

“I've tasted it,” he admits. It's the first time he's told anyone, Jared can tell. His voice is quiet, not timid exactly, but not as bold as it usually is.

“When?” Jared whispers. He's almost afraid of the answer but he needs it like he needs air.

“It was a long time ago. I was a kid back then, still workin' shit out and I didn't know any better. Went through a phase, but I got over it,” Jensen answers, casual. Jared almost believes him.

“Did you?” he asks, leaning into Jensen as Jensen pulls him a little bit closer. “Did you really get over it?”

Jared feels Jensen shrug against him, then press a kiss to Jared's forehead.

“More or less,” Jensen answers. “It was only ever a childish fantasy, really. And I guess that fantasy is still alive, always will be. There's nothing wrong with that.”

Jared holds his breath and nods against Jensen's chest.

“But don't you worry, baby,” Jensen tells him, teeth digging more sharply into Jared's neck around a smile. He flips Jared down onto the coffee table and tugs his loose sweats down to this knees, works his hand between Jared's thighs so his palm presses against Jared's hole and his fingers tickle the base of Jared's ever-growing erection. “I'm strictly into dick now.”

“Ngh,” Jared moans, presses back into Jensen's hand. He can still see the woman from the movie in his mind's eye, still see the man between her legs, giving her pleasure. It's that picture, it's Jensen's hand on him, _in_ him, around him and then Jensen's cock, sliding between his cheeks and then deeper. It's all that, and it's Jensen's deep breath in his ear that has Jared shivering, flailing and whimpering.

Damn. For someone who was never attracted to men, Jared has done a damn good imitation of it, since he met Jensen.

“You want to watch?” Jensen asks, from where he covers Jared's back, hands on Jared's arms and hips pressing Jared's hips into the solid oak below them.

Jared's mind reels, he blinks and shakes his head as much as he can between Jensen and the table. “Watch what?”

Jensen chuckles and the sound goes through Jared like butter.

“You don't have to hide it, Jared. There's nothing wrong with it, not really. A lot of guys get off to the thought of pussy once in a while. It's kinda hot.”

Except for Jared, it's not once in a while. He doesn't pleasure himself all that often but nearly every time he has, and every time he's come in his entire life – up until he met Jensen anyway – has been to the thought of... a woman.

“I love you,” Jared says, instead of answering.

Jensen just laughs again, holds Jared tighter and reaches over him to Jared's pad, to set the video in motion again.

“Love you, too, baby,” Jensen says. “So fucking much, you don't even know.”

The video starts up again, the woman squeals and the man groans and after he's licked and sucked and lapped it all up when she screamed and cried and ground down on his face, she flips him over and crawls on top.

Jared's achingly hard now, filled with Jensen and needy for more because Jensen's not touching his cock, he's not fucking Jared fast enough or hard enough, just rocking in gently, kissing the back of his neck and rubbing his hands up and down Jared's arms.

“It's okay, you know,” Jensen tells him. “You don't need to feel bad, Jared. I wasn't lying when I said thinkin' about this shit is still kickin' around in my head. Most guys have a het fantasy or two if you dig deep enough. It's harmless. There's nothing wrong with you for gettin' off on a little snatch.”

“Turn it off,” Jared says, struggling under Jensen to reach for his pad.

Jensen gets there first, shutting down the screen immediately when Jared asks.

“Sorry,” Jensen says, stilling his thrusts behind Jared and wrapping his arms around him. “Shit, sorry. Too much? I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, it was just a little fun.”

“No,” Jared says. “No, it's... Tell me. Tell me what it was like. To be with a woman. I want to hear you say it.”

“Jared...”

“Yes, I'm sure. No, I don't feel bad. I'm just... Like you said, I've thought about it. And if you actually _did_ it? Well then as my lawfully wedded husband, you at least owe me the pleasure of a post-game wrap-up.”

Jared's joke falls flat when Jensen doesn't respond at first, just stills behind him and holds him closer, arm wrapped tighter around Jared's waist.

“I wasn't trying to keep that from you, Jared,” he says, more seriously than Jared would like. “What I did when I was younger, that was a long time ago. I know it was on the wrong side of the law, but the law doesn't always make a lot of sense. And I'm done with it now.”

“For the love of...” Jared starts, pushes back against Jensen's hips to shove him deeper inside. “I'm not trying to get you to confess your sins, Jay. I just know you got a little freaky back in the day and we both know I didn't. I need a little vicarious living, is all. You think a little dirty talk would kill us?”

“That what you want, baby?” Jensen asks, drawing slowly out of Jared and then slamming in again. Jared's breath catches and his eyes slam shut and he moans. “You want to hear about what she felt like, how tight she was all around me, how she cried out so pretty when I pounded her, all high-pitched, delicate little noises while I reached down between her legs and slid my thumb up along her clit, made her squirm and buck and clench?”

Jensen's hand works its way under Jared and grabs Jared's cock in time with his words, pumps it so he's squeezing underneath the head. Jared whimpers and wriggles and fixates on that picture, of Jensen on top of a woman, between her legs. She's faceless, shapeless but for the vague outline Jared's filed away from his time on the beach with Nancy. 

Jensen pounds into him harder and harder, Jared moans louder and his hand reaches for Jensen's around his prick, intent on getting off.

“Or maybe you want to hear how soft her skin was,” Jensen says, slowing down. He slows down his hand and his hips and he pins Jared against the table with his weight. “Do you want to hear how her legs felt like velvet against my hands, or how her hips were a fine, sharp angle into a narrow waist. Skinny, I guess. Hard, from the outside, with her clothes on, but naked she was....”

Jensen sighs and Jared cants his hips, asks, “she was what?” because he's jealous right now, he absolutely is jealous that Jensen still has such vivid and fond recollection of whoever this woman is but he is also tremendously turned on and he needs to hear more.

“Pretty,” Jensen says, after a few more wordless, slow thrusts. “She was pretty. Powerful, beautiful. Her pussy tasted like heaven, not just salt and ration number 4, not like anything you could possibly compare it to. And her tits.” He's moving again now, faster and faster and Jared is moving with him, under him.

“Her tits, baby. They were so round, so soft. I could bury my head between them, feel them pressed up against my cheeks, hold them there and know I was somewhere good, that everything was okay. I could feel soft, sweet tits in my hands and soft, warm thighs against my hips and a soft, wet pussy gripping my dick tight and all of them holding me close. That's what it was like.”

Jared's moaning full on by that point, out loud and ugly, begging, “Please, Jensen, God,” and all he's got in his mind, with his husband pounding into him from behind, is the picture of Jensen between a tiny little woman's legs, fucking her pussy, grabbing her tits.

All he can see is Jensen, between long, smooth legs and sloppy with girl come, drowning in enormous breasts and long, silky hair and Jared loves it, loves the idea of Jensen fucking a woman maybe even more than he wants to fuck one himself.

He's close. He's so fucking close to coming all over his own hand and Jensen's and he knows Jensen's only a heartbeat away from shooting his own end up inside Jared.

“Did you love her?” Jared asks, surprising them both. Jensen only stutters above him, though, doesn't stop.

“I've loved a lot of people,” Jensen says, jerking Jared's cock quickly and violently until he comes. Jared's orgasm is unsatisfying, oddly and he feels cold when Jensen pulls out of him abruptly and pushes him down against the wood.

He tucks his unsatisfied cock back into his pants and blinks down at Jared.

“She got pregnant. Wouldn't tell them who the father was and she disappeared. I would have. I mean, I would have owned up, I swear I wouldn't have left her.”

“Hey,” Jared says, softly. “Hey, I believe you.”

“She didn't give me the chance. She was gone before I even knew what had happened. Before I even knew... I had to find out from her friend. He broke my nose when he told me, not that I blame him. Don't know what happened to her. Or the kid. I haven't seen her in fifteen years, so I don't really think it matters too much at this point if I loved her or not.”

It's sad as hell. Jared's heart breaks for the kid, for Jensen and the mother. A family that could have been, in a different world, a thousand years ago.

Jensen keeps looking down and Jared lets him have his moment, lets him think about his lost love while he rights himself, sets his own jellied limbs into motion and strips himself of what's left of his clothing.

Jensen finds his way to the couch, eventually, fully clothed and looking impeccable once again and Jared immediately falls in next to him, naked and dishevelled, with dark, heavy eyes.

“Christ,” Jensen says, laughing a little as he throws an arm over Jared's shoulder. “You're gorgeous, Jared. Unbelievably fucking beautiful. I love you. You know that, right?”

Jared does know. He settles back into Jensen's arms and tugs the blanket over them, half watches when Jensen turns on the evening news.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Jared asks.

Jensen doesn't answer for a while.

“It never came up.”

“It never came up,” Jared repeats, voice edging toward incredulous. “It never came up – to the man that you married – that you once had sex with a woman? And _got her pregnant?_ ”

Jared's hurt, honestly. He'd thought Jensen trusted him more than that. Felt comfortable enough to share his secrets. Especially after the whole army reserve thing.

And yes, okay. Jared's a hypocrite. What?

“I'm sorry, Jared,” Jensen says, letting out a long breath. “I really wasn't trying to hide anything from you. It's just a part of my life I put behind me. It was painful. Still is, when I harp on it. So... I just don't. Like I said, doesn't matter anymore.”

“I want you to feel like you can talk to me, Jensen,” Jared tells him.

“I want the same,” Jensen answers.

Jared falls asleep that night with Jensen wrapped in his arms. He knows it shouldn't matter, but he can't shake the knowledge that there's another person out there with Jensen's beautiful green eyes.

Jared thinks he might want a baby.

***

On their three year anniversary Jensen surprises Jared with a trip to Baffin Island.

It's starting to get a little cool, especially that far north but they pack warm and they hold each other close on the shore while they watch the Northern Lights – blues and greens, deep intense flashes and waves that flicker and weave through the sky, lighting up the night like it's midday.

“So,” Jensen says, leaning closer to bounce his shoulder off Jared's. “Still love me as much as you did the day you married me?”

“More,” Jared tells him, smiling.

Jensen snorts and rolls his eyes.

“You're happy though, right? Because I'm happy.”

“You sound surprised.” And okay, maybe surprised is the wrong word but there's definitely something.

“Not surprised, no,” Jensen answers. He's quiet for a moment. “Believe it or not, before I met you I'd never even considered settling down like this. Marriage was something other people did, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jared answers. “I know.” Boy does he ever know.

“Didn't want to tie yourself down to only one man, eh?” Jensen teases and Jared wants to tease back but something about this moment, Jensen by his side and the sky a stark, startling green makes Jared unapologetically honest. 

“I've never met another man who makes me feel like you do.”

“No other man, huh?”

“No.”

Jensen makes love to him that night.

He looks into Jared's eyes right up until they come all over each other and then he presses the side of his face to Jared's. 

“Thank you, Jared,” he says, still catching his breath.

“What, 'cause of that thing I did with my hips? Trust me, it was my pleasure.”

Jensen laughs and rolls off, throws an arm over Jared's middle.

“Smartass,” he mumbles.

*** 

Something about Jensen is that he's not really an animal person.

But recently he's been spending more and more time curled up on the couch while Killer jumps and pounces all over him and all Jensen does is smile and scrunch up his nose and scratch Killer behind his ears.

Jensen's never mentioned children, not beyond what he let slip about himself a couple of years ago but Jared's starting to think that Jensen might have a little bit of a nurturing streak himself.

***

Nearly four years into his marriage, Jared has an affair.

Okay, so it's not an _affair_ exactly, but. But maybe it is.

They're not dates he goes on, not really. He just hangs out after work with the new cashier, Michael. He's sweet and he's eager and he's clearly hung up on Jared and it's not that Jared really likes the attention – he's got all the attention and adoration he needs from Jensen. And then some. 

And it's not that he doesn't love Jensen, it's not that he's not still attracted to Jensen.

It has nothing to do with Jensen at all.

He does it because he's attracted to Michael.

For the first time in as long as he can remember (excluding his husband), he's attracted to a man. He's curious. 

Maybe he's looking for validation, maybe he wants proof that he's normal after all, that the way he feels for Jensen isn't just some kind of anomaly. Maybe he wants to prove to himself that he's just like everybody else, that he likes men, like he's supposed to.

He doesn't mean for it to go anywhere.

Drinks, a few rounds of darts, a dinner or two, a movie the odd Friday night, when Jensen's out with his friends.

That's how it starts.

It ends with Jared backed against his living room wall, pants around his ankles and Jensen's chest heaving as he looms over him, fist cut and bruised and dripping red. It ends with Michael hunched over on the floor next to them, one arm curled around his belly and the other pinching the bridge of his nose, stemming the flow of blood.

“Jensen,” Jared croaks, flinches slightly as Jensen's fist clenches, arm pulled back by his shoulder. “I...”

He doesn't think Jensen will hit him, but he's just watched him kick the shit of his partner in crime, so.

“Fuck,” Jensen hisses, drops his arm to his side and pushes off the wall, backs up so that Jared can stand straight again. He glances to the side, to where Michael is coughing up blood into his hand. 

“Son of a bitch,” Jensen grumbles as he stalks off into the kitchen, comes back out with a damp cloth and a plastic bag full of ice. He bends down to clean Michael up, shoves the ice against his face and smiles snidely when Michael cringes at the pain.

“Thanks,” he says and Jensen looks at him like he wants to punch him again, but instead helps him to his feet.

“Don't thank me,” Jensen tells him. “Give me a reason to not to break your teeth, too.”

“Mr. Ackles, I...”

“Don't!!” Jensen roars. “Don't call me 'Mr. Ackles'. I'm not his fucking dad. If you're fucking my husband, call me by my name.”

“Jensen,” Jared says, but Jensen's hand shoots out and grips tight to Jared's arm, squeezes in warning.

“Not you,” he says to Jared, his eyes never leaving Michael's.

“Jensen,” Michael says, steadying himself on his feet. “I know you probably want to hear that this isn't what it looks like, but. It _is_ what it looks like.”

But it's not, not really. Okay, technically it is, technically Michael had his hand stuffed into Jared's underwear and Jared hadn't pushed him away. Jared was hard, Jared was _enjoying_ it, but it was the first time. It's not like it looks because this was the first time, it's not what it looks like because Michael means nothing to Jared, not beyond a mental check, a self diagnostic of his sexual proclivities. It's not what it looks like because Jensen has been good to Jared, Jared loves Jensen and he doesn't want anybody else.

“Jared and I have been seeing each other,” Michael goes on. “I know this is... a really awkward way for you to find out, but there it is. And I don't plan on backing off. If Jared still wants me, I'll fight for him.”

They both look to Jared then, sudden snap of their heads in strange unison. 

Michael looks hopeful, Jensen looks completely and utterly blank.

“No,” Jared says, shaking his head back and forth until he's dizzy. “No, of course not. Michael, I'm... I'm sorry. I love my husband. Jensen... I...”

Jensen's eyes narrow and he's eerily quiet when he leaves the room. Jared watches while Michael smiles sadly and nods, makes his way out of their house, the front door closing with a soft snick behind him. He walks to the door and locks it, arms and legs numb and his vision is swimming when he forces himself, one step at a time into the bedroom, after Jensen.

Jensen still doesn't say anything, just crosses to Jared and dispassionately strips him to his underwear, to match Jensen's own state of undress. Jared shivers a little, not from the cold and he sighs, breathes slowly and doesn't protest when Jensen pulls him into their bed, spoons up behind him.

“Are you leaving me?” he asks, when Jensen's body is curled up tight against the back of his own. It's the single worst thing that Jared can possibly imagine. He's been selfish, stupid trying to prove things to himself that don't even matter because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that he loves his husband. “I didn't mean it, Jensen. I promise I didn't mean it. I let myself get carried away and I was wrong. I was _wrong_ , Jensen. I swear to you, it will never happen again. Please. Don't leave me.”

“I don't know,” Jensen answers and Jared's heart breaks even as he falls asleep with Jensen's arm curled around his middle.

If Jared expected Jensen to punish him, if he expected to have to beg and grovel and answer for his whereabouts every second of every day, serve Jensen beer on the couch and breakfast in bed and let Jensen choose the movie every Saturday and not complain when he's out late with his friends until Jensen realises what a good husband Jared is and everything goes back to normal, Jared is sorely mistaken.

Jensen doesn't freeze Jared out, not exactly and he doesn't let Jared suck up. Jensen acts like everything is normal, does everything the way he normally would. He still makes Jared breakfast and cooks him supper, still meets up with him for lunch when they can and he still asks Jared along when he goes out with his friends after work, still tags along with Jared's. He still lets Jared pick the movie and he still sleeps with his arm wrapped around Jared's middle every night.

But it's different.

He doesn't smile at Jared the way he did before, his kisses don't linger. He doesn't entirely relax against Jared when he holds him close and their conversations are terse, to the point and only when necessary.

And when Jensen fucks Jared – he still does fuck Jared and Jared's glad because he'd been worried that Jensen wouldn't want to go near him after what happened – he fucks him like he has something to prove, hard and deep and slow.

He holds Jared down, hands bruising around Jared's arms and hips marking up the backs of Jared's thighs and they don't kiss except where Jensen's teeth hover over the side of Jared's neck, where they graze against his skin with every stilted downstroke. It doesn't quite hurt; the roughness. What does is the distance.

“Can you forgive me?” Jared asks, breathless and spread out, cradling Jensen into him. “I'm so sorry, Jensen. Please, forgive me. He didn't mean anything.”

The words are so familiar, spoken so many times in the first few days, but right now he doesn't know where they come from. They haven't spoken about Jared's infidelity since it happened, months ago. It's never left his mind though. Jensen's either.

“I know he didn't,” Jensen says. “It's not... It was never even about him, I know that. But whether you want to admit it or not, it _was_ about me. Or about you. About us. You wouldn't have done it if everything was fine. You were looking for something, something I wasn't giving you. So how am I supposed to forgive you when I'm half the problem, Jared?”

Jared can't argue with that. It's the truth, he was looking for something. Thing is, Michael made him realise that he'd never find it, not in anyone else. Jared's never accepted his own truth but it doesn't matter, not anymore. Only one thing does.

“I love you, Jensen,” Jared says. “I want to be your husband.”

Jensen wraps his arms around Jared tighter.

“Me too,” he says. “I'll need some time, but... me too.”

***

A year later it's like it never happened.

***

Padalecki Enterprises reveals it's next generation jump technology to a cacophony of cheers and camera flashes, news crews and world leaders and movie stars.

Jared's there at the reception, with Jensen and they eat over-priced hors d'oeuvres and make small talk with the prince of Micronesia and they listen as the World Science Council outlines their plans for the colonization of Mars.

“You know, we could go,” Jared says casually, as director Collins presents his slide show.

“Huh?”

“We could go. To Mars. I mean, second wave of course, when all the hard work's done. They're going to need people. Plus, we're Padalecki. They'd totally give us a spot.”

Jensen blinks at him. They're halfway through the second course of braised lamb shank – honest to God, raised on a farm, slaughtered and butchered and cooked up in a pot _lamb_ – and Jensen puts his fork down.

“You want to go to Mars?”

Jared sighs and shakes his head.

“No,” he answers. “No, not really.” Really, he doesn't know what he wants. He's restless, twitchy. He doesn't really want to go to Mars, but he wants _something_.

“Hey,” Jensen tells him, lowering his voice and leaning closer. He takes Jared's hand and squeezes. “Hey, if you do we can talk about it. I just... You never said that was something you'd be interested in. Leaving Earth.”

“No,” Jared says again, smiling this time, reassuring. “No, I'm just thinking out loud. It must be exciting for the colonists, an adventure. But I'm happy here.”

Jensen looks at him for a moment, like maybe he doesn't quite believe that but he lets it go.

“What do you say we cut out of here early?” he suggests. “Go get some ice cream.”

They've got ice cream at home, it turns out and Jensen spends half the night licking hot fudge sauce off Jared's chest.

***

On their five year anniversary, Jared surprises Jensen with a petition to adopt a child.

It's something he's been thinking about practically since they got together. Since long before that, really. Jared's always wanted to be a father. He's caring, nurturing and protective by nature and he loves Killer with all his heart but a pet's just not the same as a real, human child.

And it's something Jared never thought he could have. He always thought that getting married would be living a lie, just assumed he'd never want to put himself or anyone he cared about through that kind of deceit.

With Jensen though, that's not what it is.

He's still attracted to women. He's still _not_ attracted to men in general but Jensen is beautiful and he's mesmerizing and he makes Jared feel good, in and out of the bedroom. He's not attracted to men but he _is_ attracted to Jensen. He loves Jensen, he's happy with Jensen. They bring out the best in each other, they're the very best of friends, there's no other person in world that Jared could imagine living his life next to.

This is what he'd hoped for, in the back of his mind. This kind of life, this kind of partnership – it's exactly what he'd always imagined, when he'd let himself imagine raising a child.

Love. Laughter. Companionship. Support.

So what if his dick gets a little harder for the girl who works the counter at the co-op than it does for Jensen? This is his life now, and now that he's gotten to know how Jensen and he fit together, he wouldn't have it any other way.

They'll raise the fuck out of a kid. A little girl, Jared secretly hopes. She'll be beautiful, she'll be perfect and Jared will braid her hair and teach her how to dunk a basketball and sneak her sweets when Jensen's not looking.

Jared's been thinking about this for the last five years and there's not a doubt in his mind.

“I'm not sure this is a good idea,” is what Jensen says, when Jared shows him the papers.

They're curled up on the couch after a five star dinner that Jensen cooked himself, mostly from fresh ingredients from their garden out back. It was delicious – thick slices of real tomato and fresh green lettuce, hot peppers and snap peas and potatoes and an herb sauce flavourful enough to drown out the taste of protein ration number three.

“Why not?”

“I don't know if I'm ready to quit my job, Jared,” Jensen tells him. “I know I don't make all that much money, but I love what I do. I don't want to stop.”

Neither of them makes all that much money, not compared to their trust funds (which is probably most of the reason they decided to get a job outside the family businesses – Jared's little way of rebelling, probably Jensen's too) and Jared's never once considered that he makes more money than Jensen does, day to day.

“Who says you have to?” Jared asks, frowning. “Why would us having a baby mean you have to quit your job?”

“I'm not sending my kid to daycare,” Jensen tells him. “I don't get why people do that. If you want a kid enough to ask the government for one, why would you let someone else raise them?”

Jared smiles a little, because he actually agrees with that. Not that he thinks there's anything wrong with daycare. It's necessary, it helps families out when they can't afford for someone to stay home but Jared has enough money, especially when he combines it with Jensen's own fortune, for neither of them to ever work again, if they wanted it that way. So Jared's always kind of figured, in the most remote corners of his imagination, that if he had a child, he'd want to be there. All the time.

He doesn't want to take the chance that someone else is going to hear them speak their first words or see them take their first steps. 

Jared wants trips to the zoo and afternoons with picture books. He wants to pack lunches and make after school snacks and help with long division.

Never for one second has Jared imagined anyone other than himself being there for his child.

“I'll quit my job,” Jared says, like it's nothing. It's not nothing. Jared loves his job, too but when you stack it up against being a full-time father it doesn't quite compare.

Jared's not really expecting Jensen to smile and throw his arms around Jared and kiss him and tell him, “yes, yes, yes,” so he's not disappointed when that doesn't happen.

Jensen's frown just intensifies.

“Jared, this is... You've never even mentioned this before. Having a baby. This is really out of the blue.”

Jared takes a breath and he must look sad because Jensen smiles at him, a little awkwardly and takes his hand.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, I'm not saying no. I just... I think we need to think about this.”

Jared was pretty sure Jensen was just being polite, so he's pleasantly surprised when Jensen really does think about it.

He makes lists, he debates – in his own head and half out loud – and he does the math. He weighs the financial cost against the emotional reward, considers the enormity of the change to their lifestyle and their social responsibility.

His list has been thrown out and rewritten a dozen times and Jared's never actually seen it – Jensen won't let him – but he frowns every time he adds to it. Jared has a feeling the 'con' side just keeps getting longer.

As the days turn into weeks turn into months, Jared moves past nervous and into resigned. Resigned, he supposes to the inevitable, but he still doesn't want to admit it. When Jensen tries to bring it up Jared deflects, changes the subject.

“It doesn't make sense right now...” Jensen will say, and Jared will answer, “Yeah. Could you hand me the water jug? Hey, how did that test go today in your seventh period class?” and Jensen will frown, cute little lines between his brows before he answers and lets it go.

“They're up all night,” Jensen might mention, “and you don't like your sleep any less than I do.” And if that happens, Jared might distract Jensen with a blowjob and then let Killer loose all over the bed where Jensen's trying to sleep it off.

Jensen might groan and push ineffectually at Killer's fluffy little face but Jared just smiles to himself when it's clear Jensen really loves it.

They're watching a movie on an unassuming Wednesday afternoon, Jensen working from home on a PA day and Jared out sick with a 'cold'. The movie is lame, some cheesy Western bootleg Jensen got his hands on, from a thousand years ago and the sheriff and his wife have seven kids.

“Seven,” Jensen breathes. “Jesus. Can you imagine? One's too many, these days. I mean, I know every couple who wants a kid gets one, but... Did most of them stop to think whether or not they should?”

Jared hasn't quite moved on, because that's never going to happen, but he has stopped hoping that Jensen will surprise him one day. They're never going to have a child and while it's disappointing, it's mostly okay.

Jared can live with it. He's got Jensen, he's got Killer and he's pretty sure he can talk Jensen into a small dog at some point down the road, after Killer passes. And then, of course, Jensen surprises him.

“I want a baby,” Jensen says, in the end. He's spooning out scrambled eggs onto Jared's plate one morning at breakfast time and Jared almost chokes on his coffee. “I don't care what kind of sense it makes, I don't care about the pros and cons, I just... I want a baby. With you. So, let's have one.”

“Yes,” Jared says, smiles and throws his arms around Jensen. “Yes, yes, yes.”

***

Jensen showed him a movie once, from long before they were born. Hell, Jensen's showed him plenty of movies that have been erased from mainstream history (showed him a few books, too and Jared finds that he can relate to Orson Wells even better than H.G. Wells) but one movie in particular strikes Jared as meaningful.

 _2001: A Space Odyssey_.

It's, of course, ridiculous and inaccurate but there are five or ten minutes at the end. They've watched the movie half a dozen times. It's one of Jensen's favourites, he says but by the end, nearly every time, Jensen's fast asleep on the couch, drool down his chin and leg flung like dead weight over Jared's lap.

Anyway, the last few minutes. It's this guy, this... entire race, something. Jared's not sure, but he pretends to get it, because Jensen loves it so much. And he lives his life in a matter of seconds for the camera. He's not home, or... or his home is somewhere different and he has a different life than he thinks he should and it goes by _so fucking fast_ , only the milestones laid out for everyone to see.

That's sort of what Jared's life feels like.

It's a series of snapshots, is the way Jared would describe it. All lined up together in a neat, tidy album and if you looked through it without knowing any better, it would paint a picture of a full, happy life. It's been that way since him and Jensen got married, probably since they met. Maybe since before. His life is made up of moments, little bursts of happiness and sorrow and confusion and desperation. It's moments of _living_ in between years of just getting by. He tries, he really does try and he really does love Jensen. He's as happy as he ever thought he would be – _happier _in those moments when life seems so full – but in the endless ether of ordinary that makes up most of his existence, Jared almost feels like he's not really there.__

__That changes a little for him when they get their daughter, love falls into all the cracks that Jared thought were empty but the whole thing still feels a little like someone else's life._ _

__***_ _

__Madeline Grace Padalecki is a beautiful baby. Her skin is like porcelain, her hair is thick and so blond it's nearly white and she smiles and coos at both her daddies while they grin dopey grins right back down at her._ _

__She's soft, like fresh cotton under their fingers (that's what Jensen says, anyway, Jared hasn't felt fresh cotton in his life) and she smells new and... yummy, like the bread Jensen bakes, after a day or two._ _

__“What do you think, dad?” Jared asks, arms wrapped around Maddie while he jabs his elbow into Jensen's ribs. “I think she's got your hair.”_ _

__Jensen laughs, short and sharp and a little wet and his arms get tighter around Jared's shoulders._ _

__“I think she's perfect.”_ _

__Jensen quits his job the second he meets her, they stay home together to raise her and neither of them bothers going back to work, not even when she's older._ _

__They don't need to, they figure and they might as well give up those jobs to people who might._ _

__“I met someone,” Jensen says, the day he hands in his resignation and after Jared's eyes go wide but before he can start to hyperventilate Jensen shakes his head laughs._ _

__“Not like that!” he says. “Moron. No, I met someone on my time up last year. Out in the old suburbs. She was a teacher. But she was afraid to go to school out there, had her name on the list for innercity for more than ten years. She seemed like good people, Jared. Her and a lot of people out there and they just want a chance. I talked to the principal when I left and I told him I wanted her to take my place.”_ _

__“It's only one person, baby,” Jared tells him. And that's if Principal Sheppard even honours his word, but Jared's not going to mention that. They have this conversation enough as it is. Every time Jensen does time up he comes back with another pocket full of pet causes. Criminals looking to rehabilitate, honest citizens hoping for a better work assignment, children raised by parents who went downhill and couldn't provide anymore._ _

__Jensen's seen them all while he guards the walls and he's got a soft spot. He must be a crack shot, must look hella intimidating standing there in his army greens, Jared thinks, because the army sure wouldn't keep him around just for his entire lack of hard-nosed attitude._ _

__It's not a bad thing, far from it. Jared's happy that the man he's married to cares enough about the people he meets to try to help them out. But they're individuals. If Jensen can help them at all, it's one at a time. It's ten a year and it's so slow going compared to the entire world that Jared has a hard time seeing the point._ _

__“One person _this time_ ,” Jensen answers, like always._ _

__“This time,” Jared agrees._ _

__***_ _

__Jared puts in some part time hours with Padalecki Inc over the years as Maddie grows, acting mostly in an occasional advisory capacity, remotely. He's smart, has a knack for quantum mechanics and an eye for detail. He doesn't take a pay-cheque for it, but that's how he justifies his savings account. Jensen does the same with his mother's greenhouse business, but he's more hands-on, usually brings Maddie along with him when he goes._ _

__Jared's not sure what Jensen does, really. He knows Jensen keeps a good garden, but he's not sure what he has to offer to the country's leading greenhouse corporation, not until he tags along one day._ _

__Jensen knows way more about the science behind it all than Jared ever gave him credit for – knows specific pH levels and millimetres of rainfall and the biology of what strains of radishes can be mixed with what others._ _

__And a lot more besides. A lot that Jared doesn't even understand but Jensen breezes through the tents like it's nothing at all, pointing out improvements and mistakes and honestly? It's a little sexy._ _

__Jared keeps on going with them and after a while, the three of them are closer than ever._ _

__It's very nearly Jared's dream._ _

__***_ _

__When Madeline is fifteen years old, she comes home with her first boyfriend._ _

__Jared is blindsided, mentally flailing as his heart races but he stays quiet and smiles politely while Jensen welcomes the boy, Kelly, into their home. It's a different world than it was, even just twenty years ago, ten, but it's not _that_ different._ _

__Straight marriage still isn't legal, not anywhere but male/female relations are becoming slightly more mainstream. They're making movies about it now, a woman and a man who fall in love and have to hide it, or come out together and face the ridicule. There was even one a few years back where riots broke out and straight couples marched in parades and refused to leave restaurants and ended up changing the world._ _

__Jared thinks maybe that might not be too far from the near future reality – hell, some of it's going on right now – but he hopes it doesn't come about as violently as it did on the screen._ _

__Despite some pretty major advancements in straight rights (thanks in large part to Jeff Morgan and people like him) straight sex can still land you in jail for life. Especially if it leads to conception – a high likelihood considering all the shoddy, black market contraceptives that people are forced into using._ _

__A fact which Jensen takes the time to make very clear when Kelly's little surprise visit comes to an end._ _

__“Maddie, you know we don't have a problem with this, if this is who you are.”_ _

__He waits for Maddie to nod, a little nervously despite her grand entrance an hour ago and then looks pointedly at Jared for confirmation._ _

__“Uh, right. Course we don't,” he hastens to add. And really, he doesn't. At least, he shouldn't but he's spent so long, his entire _life_ pretending to be someone he wasn't, hiding that part of himself that it's hard to just accept something like this, coming from his daughter._ _

__It's not that there weren't clues. There were. The way she'd blush and duck her head when she was twelve and the boy who worked at the ice cream stand gave her extra sprinkles or the way she'd stare at all the teenaged boys on the covers of the gossip magazines in the supermarket check-outs. Or, the way she hadn't been interested in a single one of the dozen or so girls that had asked her out since she turned fourteen._ _

__Still, just because he sort of saw it coming, doesn't mean he wasn't secretly hoping he was wrong. It's hard out there, for people who are... different. He doesn't want Maddie's life to be hard._ _

__“But sweetheart,” Jensen is talking again, “I'm sure we don't have to remind you that the two of you absolutely _cannot_ be intimate.”_ _

__“Dad,” Maddie groans, rolling her eyes as he face flushes red. “Come on, gross. Nobody wants to hear their parents talk about sex.”_ _

__“Maddie,” Jensen snaps. “I'm serious. This is a big deal. You're just a kid and you don't understand right now, you think that all those horrible things that happen won't happen to you, but they _could_.”_ _

__They haven't told Maddie yet, about what happened to Jensen and his girlfriend back when he was a teenager. Jared still doesn't know much about it himself. He's brought it up, once or twice and though Jensen didn't really open up about it, he did seem to trust Jared enough not to shy away from it. Neither of them has ever mentioned having that particular talk with Maddie and this probably isn't the best time for it, but they probably should. Soon._ _

__When they finally do get around to it, when Maddie is nineteen and onto her third boyfriend, she takes it pretty well. Pretty much like Jared thought, though Jensen is surpsied._ _

__“I thought you'd be...” he starts, gestures a little without much purpose. “You know. Angry. Surprised, anyway. Not like this, like... You're pretty freakin' chill about this, honey.”_ _

__“Oh, I'm surprised,” she confirms, quickly, eyes wide. “And I'm kinda pissed you didn't tell me earlier. I mean... I have a brother out there, or a sister. How many people can say that?”_ _

__“It's not like... if we had any way of knowing, or meeting them, Maddie... I absolutely would have tried. I've been dying inside, just a little bit, going fucking _crazy_ , wondering who they are, how they grew up. Wondering if they're even alive or if... If the mother is.”_ _

__And this is news to Jared. He gathered, from the little Jensen let slip over the years, that he was upset about what happened. Hell, who wouldn't be? But he didn't know Jensen was so curious, that it plagued him like that. Jared's been so caught up in his own shit that he hadn't even noticed._ _

__“The mother,” Maddie repeats, blinking down at the dining table. “What was her name? What was she like.”_ _

__“She was young and stupid,” Jensen answers and Jared can tell by his tone that he's shutting down, that he doesn't want to wax poetic and give their daughter any ridiculous romantic fantasies, not when she needs to be so careful. “Just like I was.”_ _

__Maddie scoffs and rolls her eyes, mumbles “Whatever,” as she gets up and heads toward her room. “Thanks for the valuable life lesson, Dads.”_ _

__Maddie might be full of a million questions, but Jared finally has an answer to a question he asked years ago._ _

__Jensen did love this woman, once. Very, very much._ _

__It's odd, but Jared feels better for knowing that._ _

__The war starts when Maddie is twenty._ _

__Mars declares itself a sovereign nation, states civil rights and rules of law unique to the colony and refuses to be governed by a planet that understands nothing of who they are or their daily fight for survival._ _

__It's happened hundreds of times before, a country spreads out and the arms branch off, sick of being used for taxes and resources and left an afterthought when it comes time to divide the spoils._ _

__There's only one way it can end, only one way it ever ends, but Earth doesn't care._ _

__Earth fights back, demands resources and common laws but Mars wants food and water and personal freedoms in exchange. It's a different world, they claim, different even from the moon, because commercial Mars expeditions occur only twice a year and in the time between the citizens of Mars have to make due._ _

__A culture has started to develop, new ways of doing things, newer and more liberal beliefs coming to the fore, even as Earth demands they conform, submit._ _

__The argument escalates quickly, turns bloody and before long, Earth is sending ship after ship, dozens at a time, through the jumpgate. They're burning resources, fuel, raw materials and most importantly, people. Soldiers._ _

__Jensen, unsurprisingly, is drafted back into full-time service._ _

__“I can't believe you're going,” Jared tells him. It's an accusation, even though he knows Jensen doesn't have a choice. It's just the two of them at home now, Maddie away at college so she can't hear them argue, can't hear Jared blame Jensen for things that aren't his fault, not really._ _

__“You think I want to?” Jensen challenges. “Jared, God. You know better. You, of all people know... Earth is wrong, here. We're just wrong. I think we're wrong on this planet and I think we're wrong trying to tell the colonies what to do. But I don't have a choice!”_ _

__“Yes you do!”_ _

__“Really? And what's that? Resign? Go to jail? I took a vow. I made a promise to protect Earth and I don't get to break that promise just because I think Earth is being a dick this time.”_ _

__“But...” Jared says, quieter, slower. He can feel the tears start but he doesn't let them fall. “But you have a family.” He hates himself for this, for the blame and guilt he's laying at Jensen's feet. He hates that it won't make a difference._ _

__“So do a lot of people,” Jensen answers. “Jared, I swear I'll do my best to keep safe. There's nothing I want more than to come home to you and Maddie.”_ _

__“Please,” Jared begs, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around Jensen's middle. “Please come home to us. I can't lose you.”_ _

__Jensen doesn't promise, but he does hug Jared back, he kisses behind his ear and tells him he loves him and they make love until Jared is loose and sleepy and the tears are nothing but dried tracks on his cheeks._ _

__When he wakes up in the morning, Jensen is gone._ _

***

The war is short. It's bloody, but it's short. Mars doesn't have the jump tech but it doesn't take them more than six months to find an incredibly accurate detecting measure and soon after, nearly every time an Earth ship pops up anywhere near Mars orbit, they're targeted before they're even fully materialised and they're blown out of the sky in short order.

__Until they start showing up with white flags painted across their hulls._ _

__Jared hasn't eaten a full meal in weeks, not without losing it shortly after and he hasn't had a decent nights' sleep in months. He watches the footage on his global, ships exploding in black space, fights on red, jagged sand, a cacophony of sound and violence strung together by the media and Jared wonders if this is the cost._ _

__If this is the price he pays for not ever really loving Jensen the way he should._ _

__The war is over for nearly two weeks. Two weeks after a war that lasted half a year before Jared gets word that Jensen is okay. Two weeks and six months after the war started and Jared can breath again because his husband is okay. He's on Mars, which Jared almost can't believe, but he's on the waiting list for transport back and should be home inside a month._ _

__Jared loves Jensen._ _

__He's loved him for nearly as long as he's known him but now that he has Jensen back, he's not going to take him for granted, not anymore. He hasn't loved Jensen the way he should have, the way he promised to, but the type of love he feels has no bearing on the amount._ _

__He loves Jensen. He loves him more than anyone or anything else in this world, him and Maddie. And he's turned on by Jensen, he's attracted to Jensen and for the first time he honestly, openly accepts that. He realises that all those lines he drew for himself back when he was a teenager – they're meaningless. He doesn't have to be _straight_ just because that was the box he ticked when he first noticed a girl's chest._ _

__The appreciation he has for the female form doesn't take away from the deep and unflinching love he feels for his husband._ _

__Jared's not gay. He might not even be bi. But whatever he is, he's through trying to put a label on it._ _

__He's Jared._ _

__And he's in love with Jensen._ _

__That's all that matters._ _

__***_ _

__“Dad!” Maddie screams, throwing herself into her father's arms, nearly six months after the Mars war has ended._ _

__Jensen holds her close, scrunches his eyes shut while he buries his face against the side of her head._ _

__“I'm here, too,” Jared teases and Jensen immediately flings his arms open wider, pulls Jared into their family hug and kisses him, long and deep._ _

__They're on the tarmac, in the middle of an airfield in Florida and Jensen is sallow and pale and too skinny when he tells them both, “I quit.”_ _

__He lets them go and they look at him like they don't quite understand._ _

__“The reserve. I quit. I'm never leaving you again, either of you. Not for anything.”_ _

__Jared sneaks back in, wraps his arms around Jensen's waist and when Jensen sags against him, Jared goes for it. He lifts Jensen up, scoops him with his arms under Jensen's knees and around his ribs and Jensen's never been overly masculine and independent, but right up until he smiles up at Jared and rests his head against Jared's chest, Jared's a little nervous he'll protest._ _

__“My hero,” Jensen jokes and Jared smiles back, even though he wants to cry from how broken and tired Jensen sounds. He's been beaten, that's clear from the bruises on his face and his arms and he's severely undernourished and Jared hates him once more for doing this, hates the Earth and hates Mars and hates everyone for just one more minute before he forgives them all._ _

__The war was nobody's fault. It just was._ _

__Jensen's eyes start to droop and he smiles a dopy smile and presses a kiss to Jared's chest._ _

__Jared just hold him tighter, carries him toward the military hospital with Maddie at their side and promises himself and Jensen and their daughter, over and over that he'll never let go._ _

__***_ _

__It was horrible, the war. Too much blood, too much death. More than anyone had seen in their lifetime but there's no denying that some good came from it._ _

__Not just for the Mars colonies, but those on Earth, as well._ _

__Two years later Earth passes a law that says discrimination based on sexual orientation is unconstitutional._ _

__It doesn't stop anyone from discriminating privately, but it's a step in the right direction._ _

__***_ _

__Jared and Jensen spend their twenty-fifth anniversary on Manitoulin Island._ _

__It's a nature reserve, rocky shores and ancient evergreens, crystal blue waters. Moose and grizzly bears and deer. They take Maddie with them, and her new boyfriend, Ben. They stay in the cabin next to Jared and Jensen and they have campfires every night, roast marshmallows and protein rations and lie on the sheetrock and point to the stars._ _

__Jared shows them constellations, tells them myths that they already know and they all smile and huddle together under the blankets._ _

__Mars is out. Jared skips over it, but Jensen makes him go back._ _

__“Dad fought there,” Maddie says, breathless and reverent._ _

__“Don't know if I'd call it that,” Jensen tells them, “but I learned some stuff there.”_ _

____

____

____

__  


__When Maddie is twenty-five, Jared's world falls apart._ _

__Twice._ _

__Jared is eating supper with his husband and his daughter and her boyfriend – Ben seems to have stayed the course and Jared is grudgingly impressed – when Maddie tells them that she's leaving Earth. Later, Jensen will have another surprise, but that's for later and it's a good thing, because Jared couldn't handle it right now._ _

__“We're getting married!” their daughter announces, smiling and holding Ben's hand as she nearly jumps up and down. Sometimes she's so like Jensen that it amazes him, but this – this wide-eyed smile – that's all Jared._ _

__“You're moving in together?” he asks. They can do that, now. Straight couples can be open about it now, they can even live together if they both agree to permanent sterilization, but they still can't be legally married, not anywhere on Earth._ _

__“No,” she says and her smile falls a little. He takes a deep breath but only lets it out again, quietly and Ben shuffles his feet, clears his throat._ _

__“Sirs,” he starts, but Jensen cuts him off with a wave of his hand. Ben's a good kid. He's always sort of cow-toed to Jensen, but Jared can't really hold that against him. He's still a virgin and so is Maddie and for Jared, that's all that matters. Ben clearly cares about their daughter._ _

__“You're moving to Mars,” Jensen says, without a trace of emotion._ _

__“Shit,” Jared whispers, under his breath, just now catching on. Of course. Straight marriage is legal on Mars. So is natural procreation. Shit, he should have expected this. She's a farmer, just like Jensen; graduated top of her class in farm sciences. And she's a Padalecki. Of course she'd get a spot on the next ship, if she wanted it._ _

__“Dad,” Maddie says, a quiet whisper. Her eyes are sad, pleading and Jensen stands up._ _

__“It's fine,” Jensen says. “It's good.” He smiles, then, though it's forced. “We're happy for you. Surprised and we'll miss you, but we're happy for you. Right, sweetheart?”_ _

__He looks at Jared and Jared shakes his head, eyes a little glazed before he answers, “Yes. Yes, of course we are.”_ _

__Then there are smiles and tears and congratulations, drinks and deserts before Maddie goes home with Ben and Jared and Jensen make their way back to their own, too quiet home._ _

__Jared strips out of his suit and doesn't bother with pyjama pants, just smiles at Jensen and cocks his head toward the bed. Sure, they're old, but they're not dead._ _

__“Not tonight,” Jensen says. “Put some pants on.”_ _

__“What?” Jared asks. “Jensen, is something wrong?”_ _

__“Not really,” Jensen answers. “Just... put some pants on. I don't think we should have this conversation in our underwear.”_ _

__Jared quickly grabs for his flannel pants and pulls them up to his hips before he stands, tall and stiff with his arms crossed over his chest._ _

__“Relax,” Jensen says, laughing without any humour as he pulls on his own sweats. He doesn't bother with a shirt and the ripple of muscles under the slight padding of age makes Jared's mouth water. Still, after all this time, he finds that Jensen is beautiful._ _

__“Jensen. What's going on?”_ _

__Jensen takes his hand, leads him out to the living room and they sit, side by side on the couch. It's all making Jared even more nervous._ _

__“Jensen.”_ _

__“You should go with her,” Jensen says._ _

__“What? You mean with Maddie? To Mars?”_ _

__“Yes. You should go with her.”_ _

__Jared can't say that's a bad idea. He's sort of wanted to go to Mars since it was first colonized. But Jensen said _you_ , not _we_._ _

__“What about you?” Jared asks, even though he has a sinking feeling about the answer._ _

__“I think we should divorce,” Jensen says. His voice wavers, but Jensen gets it under control pretty quickly. His eyes don't even water._ _

__“What?!” Jared screams. “Jensen, no!”_ _

__“You want to go to Mars,” he says, simply. “You always have. I don't. It makes sense.”_ _

__“Jensen, our marriage makes sense. Not us splitting up so I can move to a different planet. We live here.”_ _

__“Jared,” Jensen sighs. “Straight marriage is legal on Mars.”_ _

__“And?”_ _

__“Jared, come on. I'm offering you an out. Don't make me say it.”_ _

__“Say what?” Jared asks, voice shaky. He already knows, of course he does but he was hoping to go his whole life without Jensen ever knowing. Looks like he's about thirty years late on that one._ _

__“Are you even bisexual?”_ _

__“I...” Jared doesn't know what to say to that. He's been over it and over it in his own head and he still doesn't know._ _

__“I know you're into women. I just don't know if you're also into men. I don't know if you're not into men at all, or if it's just me you're iffy about.”_ _

__Wait, _what_?_ _

__“How can you say that?” he demands. “I... I've been faithful to you, Jensen. I have been, since...”_ _

__“Hey, I'm not saying you haven't. I'm not even saying that you didn't enjoy it. I just... I've known people who went through life pretending. And I don't judge. I wouldn't judge you, Jared, except... except you married me, you told me you loved me. You let me give myself to you, over and over and. We've built a life. And I don't know if it's real.”_ _

__“Of course it's real.”_ _

__“Jared. Be honest. Please, right now, just be honest.”_ _

__Jensen takes his hand, slides closer so their thighs are touching._ _

__“I guess... I guess maybe I am. Bisexual. I mean, I'm attracted to women. I always thought... thought that I should be with a woman, even though I knew I wouldn't. But then I met you and. And I like you, too.”_ _

__“Gee, thanks.”_ _

__“No, that came out wrong.”_ _

__“No, it didn't,” Jensen says. “That's why we should divorce. I know you like me, I know I was the best choice you could have made, but things are different now. You can have what you want, now. If you go to Mars with Maddie, you can find what you want there. You can be who you are. You don't have to be stuck with me.”_ _

__“Jensen, I'm not stuck with you! I love you. It might not... I might have chosen something different, once. If I'd thought I had that choice, if I was brave enough to take it, but. But I didn't. I chose you. I'm happy with you.”_ _

__And he is. Whatever else is going on, he's happy with Jensen. He's made that choice, that commitment and he's never going back._ _

__“But that's the thing. Now you do have that choice. You can move to Mars and have that choice.”_ _

__“I can,” Jared says and he stops, honestly stops, with his hand on Jensen's thigh and Jensen's hand on his shoulder. He stops and thinks and it sinks in one more time that he has a choice. And really, it was never any choice at all._ _

__“I choose you, Jensen,” he tells his husband. “I wouldn't have, twenty years ago, but right now, from now on, I choose you. I _love_ you.”_ _

__And he means it._ _

__He's in love with Jensen, he wants to spend his days growing old with Jensen, he wants to grow tomato plants in the backyard and make love on their old oak-framed bed. He wants to point to the stars and wrap himself up in Jensen's arms talk about what their baby girl is doing up there._ _

__He wants to be Jensen's husband. He wants them to grow old together, to hold each other close and kiss each other in the mornings._ _

__He's in love, for the first time, for the last time._ _

__And he means it._ _

__END_ _

__

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End file.
